Is there a way to modify registiry hives of domain user not logged into the comptuer

Question

We have an issue where we need to modify keys for users that are not currently logged into the machines and those that will login set a default. I know the best way to do this is a domain policy but that option is unavailable. Is there any good way to modify these keys programmaticly, or remotely short of having an exe on each machine run when the user logs in.

Answer 1

Richard Jones has written a library hivex which provides read/write access raw Windows registry hive files. Also see its git repository and the mailing list announcement. It exposes a C API with Perl, Python, and OCaml bindings.

You could try using that library to write a script to perform the manipulations you need.

Answer 2

I have had to do this in the past for setting default power schemes, since every computer has to be touched I updated the logon script to loop through all of the profiles in Documents and Settings and loading all of the ntuser.dat files to update, the scripting language I used was WinBatch, it has specific functions for loading registry hives.

Now since you mentioned that this needs to be done for computers with no logged in users I would suggest running the program with a tool such as Microsoft SMS or Altaris if you have it available. Other than that I guess psexec could be your friend.