Validate CloudSphere credential has the right permissions to access Remote Registry.

The CAM product uses remote registry operations to retrieve information from a target machine in order to populate the internal CAM server databases.

This article is intended to identify how the remote registry works, and provides a means to perform a simple test to validate that user credentials have the required permissions to access remote registry on a target.

How to Connect to a Remote Registry

Remotely connecting to another computer's Windows Registry isn't something you'll do regularly but Registry Editor does let you do it. Using the remote feature of Regedit provides a simple method to do some initial testing of the permission for remote registry access.

1. Open Registry Editor by executing regedit from any command line interface in Windows, e.g. from Command Prompt or the Run dialog box.

2. Go to File > Connect Network Registry.

3. Type into the large empty space the name of the computer you want to remotely access the registry for.

   The "name" that's being requested here is the hostname of the other computer, not the name of your computer. The IP address of the target machine can also typically be used.
   

   

4. Select Check Names.

   After several seconds or more, depending on the speed and size of your network and computer, you'll see the remote computer's full path, shown as LOCATION\NAME (1 & 2 in the diagram below)

   

   

   If you get a warning that says "An object (Computer) with the following name cannot be found: "NAME".", check that the remote computer is properly connected to the network and that you've entered its hostname/IP correctly.

   You need to enter credentials for a user on the remote computer so that you can verify that you have access to connect to the registry. You should use the same domain and username as you would like to test. If the administrator is the local admin user on the target then provide the domain\username as '.\Administrator'

5. Choose OK.

   Registry Editor will attempt to connect to the remote computer's registry.

   1. Unsuccessful Connection:

      1. If you get an "Unable to connect to [name]." error, you don’t:

         1. have permissions with the user login

         2. you may need to enable the Remote Registry service.

   2. Successful Connection:

      1. You'll see Computer (your current computer), as well as the other computer (the one that you wish to test) under on the LHS. A display that shows the target means that you have connected to the Remote Registry (additional permissions may be required to review all keys)
         

         

         As you're working in the remote registry you're connected to, you will notice two things:

         • significantly fewer registry hives than on your computer, while your computer probably has at least five individual registry hives, you'll notice immediately that the registry you're connected to remotely only shows HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_USERS. The three remaining keys, HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, HKEY_CURRENT_USER, and HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG, while not appearing like you may be used to, are all included in various subkeys within the two hives you do see.

         • "Access is denied" messages when navigating around.

      2. Now that you're connected, you can check if you can check if you can read specific keys and values within the Hives. One of the registry values is the HostName. The path to this key is identified in the banner (Item 1); the registry path terminator is item 2; the key is Item 3 and the value is item 4.
         

         If you can read the key and value then you have access to the registry. 

How to Enable the Remote Registry Service in Windows

The Remote Registry Windows Service must be enabled on the remote computer you wish to view. Most Windows installations disable this service by default, so don't be surprised if you run into this problem. It can be enabled in the following manner:

1. Open Control Panel on the computer you want to connect to.

2. Go to Windows Tools (Windows 11) or Administrative Tools, and then Services. You can also open Services via the Run dialog box with the services.msc command. You won't see this option in Control Panel if you're viewing the items by category. Switch to the other view to see Administrative Tools.

3. Find Remote Registry from the list and double-click or double-tap it.

4. From the Startup type drop-down box, choose Manual.

   

   Choose Automatic instead of Manual if you want the Remote Registry service to run all the time, helpful if you know you'll want to do this again in the future.

5. Choose Apply.

6. Select Start, followed by OK once the service is done starting.

7. Close the Services window, and any Control Panel windows you might still have open.

Now that the Remote Registry service is started on the remote computer you want to view the registry,  try connecting again.