Trying to edit the registry in Windows with a batch file

Question

I am supporting a few offices across the country running Windows XP. They are stand alone, no Windows Server or Active Directory, anything like that. I just switched them over to Google Apps, and in the process replaced Windows Live Messenger with Google Talk. I really want to stop Windows Live from being used, the platform sends so much spam and seems to have a lot of holes. I have tested making a registry edit to key

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\DisallowRun 

adding a string value msnmsgr.exe set to 1. I did it manually on one machine, and it worked, under both profiles, it wouldn't start Messenger. After my success, I wrote a .REG file thusly:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\DisallowRun]
"msnmsgr.exe"="1"

And a batch file, run from the same directory, written like this:

@ECHO off

REGEDIT.EXE /S msn.reg

It seems to write to the registry, but Live is starting. No idea what's happening. Seems this could have gone either way between Serverfault and here, but I went here since the Administration part seems resolved yet the little programming involved isn't working out.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Solution

Looks to me like you have the Registry value name and data swapped. According to the kb article, the REG_SZ value(s) should be named numerically starting with "1", and the included data would be the executable name ("msnmsgr.exe"). Thus, your .REG file should look like this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\DisallowRun]
"1"="msnmsgr.exe"

Also, I would recommend that you use the REG.EXE program for simple edits like this, rather than importing a .REG file. For the change you wanted, your REG.EXE command would look like this:

reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\DisallowRun" /v "1" /t REG_SZ /d "msnmsgr.exe" /f

Comments

[Kevin]

I am sorry, I meant HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

[ewall]

(Edited original question for HKCU.)

[Kevin]

The files are exactly the same

[Kevin]

And I would place that line in a batch file?

[ewall]

Yes, exactly. The reg add ... command should work directly on the command-line or in a batch script.

[Nagarajan S R]

Hi, I tried and it did work. My question is how to disable the prompt confirming to add registry?

[Stony]

There will be no prompt if you use the /f switch. technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc742162(v=ws.10).aspx