ERRORMSG: Failed to update system registry

Article ID: 030804sab
Last Reviewed: July 10, 2023

The information in this article applies to:

  • Pronto for Windows releases 5.60 to 5.63 running on Windows Vista or Windows 7.
  • Pronto for Windows releases 5.00 to 5.20 running under a restricted user account on Windows NT4, 2000 or XP.
  • Pronto for Windows all releases on Windows Vista.

Symptoms

When Pronto is started the following message appears three times:

    Failed to update system registry. Please try using regedit.

Cause

Pronto refreshes information about the file types it supports each time it is started. This information resides in the system registry under the key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. A restricted user does not have write access to this section of the registry so the refresh attempt fails with the error message above. This error occurs once for each of the three Pronto file types, Projects, Views and Reports. After clicking on OK Pronto runs normally.

For Non-Vista platforms:
In release 5.21 or later Pronto checks for write access before attempting to refresh the registry and this message should no longer appear.
For Windows Vista.
Pronto still checks for write access which is granted, but the registry update still fails due to other access restrictions.

Resolution

For Windows Vista or Windows 7.

Run Pronto once only as an administrator. This allows Pronto to fill in the file support information in the Registry.
The second or subsequent time that Pronto is run the message will not be shown as the file support information is present and Pronto will not need to write to the registry.

For platforms other than Windows 7 or Vista, any one of the following:

  • Click on OK on this message, each time Pronto is started.
  • Upgrade Pronto for Windows to release 5.21 or later.
  • Run Pronto under a privileged user account. This has security implications.
  • Using REGEDIT or REGEDT32 grant the user full access to the whole of HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. This has security implications.
  • Using REGEDIT or REGEDT32 grant the user full access to all of the following six keys.     HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Pronto.Project.Document
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Pronto.View.Document
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Pronto.Report.Document
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{9F001CC0-919F-101B-8DFA-FAB2F1A66ECF}
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{B94BD480-9130-101B-8DFA-FAB2F1A66ECF}
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{11C26F00-43AC-101D-BEE5-00AA004FDCA7}

See Also

The following Microsoft article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q254957/