How to Connect to a Remote Registry in Windows 7 and 10

But first there are a few prerequisites

If you’re in a small business environment, it can become really annoying if you have to walk out to each computer that you need to fix. Instead, if you can remotely connect and fix problems or adjust settings, it makes things a lot more convenient.

Though it’s less common, there are times when you might need to connect to another computer to change, delete or add registry keys and values. Obviously, you could remote desktop into the computer and do this, but if you’re reading this article, you aren’t going that route.

In this article, I’m going to talk about the remote registry service in Windows that allows you to connect directly to the registry hives on another computer using regedit. However, in order for this to work, there are several prerequisites.

Remote Registry Requirements

If you’re hoping to connect to a remote computer that you don’t have access to, then you’re out of luck. In order to use Remote Registry, you basically need administrator access to both computers. So, this is basically for convenience and can’t be used to hack into someone else’s registry.

There are a couple of things that have to be in place before remote registry will even work:

The first requirement is easy to fulfill. Just go add a password to your account, if it doesn’t already have one. The second requirement can be fixed using the command prompt. To open an administrator command prompt, click onStart, typecmdand right-click on cmd and chooseRun as Administrator.

Now copy and paste the following command into the command prompt window and press Enter.

You’ll get a warning message that the command executed successfully, but the netsh firewall command is deprecated. You will get this message on Windows 7, Windows 8 or Windows 10. It’s not a problem as long as it completed successfully. Note that you have to run this command on both machines.

For the third requirement, you need to click onStart, type inservicesand then click on justServiceswith the two gear icons.

Scroll down till you see Remote Registry and it should not be running by default. On Windows 10, it’ll actually be disabled by default. On Windows 7, you can just right-click on it and chooseStart. On Windows 10, you’ll have to right-click and choosePropertiesfirst.

In the properties dialog, you need to change theStartup typeto something other thanDisabled. If you need to do this only one time, change it toManual. If you need to access the remote registry often, chooseAutomatic.

After you select the startup type, click theApplybutton and then theStartbutton will no longer be greyed out. ClickStartto start the remote registry service. Again, this needs to be done on both machines.

Connect to Remote Registry Hive

Once you have completed all the steps above, you can try to connect to the remote registry. Click onStart, typeregeditto open the registry editor. Next, click onFileand then click onConnect Network Registry.

Here you will have to type in the NETBIOS name of the computer that you want to connect to.

Note that you can quickly perform a search for all computers on the network by clicking onAdvancedand then clicking onFind Now. If the computer you are connecting to has a long name, you’ll need to determine the NETBIOS name for the computer. You can do this by opening a command prompt on that computer and typing innbtstat -n.

Once you type the name in and click OK, you will be prompted to enter the username and password for an administrator account on the remote computer.

Note that if you are connecting to a Windows 10 machine remotely and it’s logged in using your Microsoft account, you need to type the email address for the username and the password as usual. You should hopefully get connected to the registry on the remote computer. If you get any kind of Access Denied message, it means you must have typed in the credentials wrong.

As you can see from above, I connected to a Windows 7 machine using remote registry from my Windows 10 PC. You’ll only seeHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEandHKEY_USERSwhen connected to a remote registry. If you have any questions or run into any problems, post a comment and I’ll try to help. Enjoy!

Founder of Help Desk Geek and managing editor. He began blogging in 2007 and quit his job in 2010 to blog full-time. He has over 15 years of industry experience in IT and holds several technical certifications.Read Aseem’s Full Bio

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