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SHCopyKey function

Applies to: desktop apps only

Recursively copies the subkeys and values of the source subkey to the destination key. SHCopyKey does not copy the security attributes of the keys.

Syntax

Copy 
LSTATUS SHCopyKey(
  __in        HKEY hkeySrc,
  __in_opt    LPCTSTR pszSrcSubKey,
  __in        HKEY hkeyDest,
  __reserved  DWORD fReserved
);

Parameters

hkeySrc [in]

Type: HKEY

A handle to the source key (for example, HKEY_CURRENT_USER).

pszSrcSubKey [in, optional]

Type: LPCTSTR

The subkey whose subkeys and values are to be copied.

hkeyDest [in]

Type: HKEY

The destination key.

fReserved

Type: DWORD

Reserved. Must be 0.

Return value

Type: LSTATUS

Returns ERROR_SUCCESS if successful, or one of the nonzero error codes defined in Winerror.h otherwise. Use FormatMessage with the FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM flag to retrieve a generic description of the error.

Remarks

Important  This function does not duplicate the security attributes of the keys and values that it copies. Rather, all security attributes in the destination key are the default attributes.

Requirements

Minimum supported client

Windows 2000 Professional, Windows XP

Minimum supported server

Windows 2000 Server

Header
Shlwapi.h

Library
Shlwapi.lib

DLL
Shlwapi.dll (version 5.0 or later)

Unicode and ANSI names

SHCopyKeyW (Unicode) and SHCopyKeyA (ANSI)

 

 

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Build date: 3/7/2012

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Warning: Doesn't understand 64-bit registry virtualisation
SHCopyKey appears not to understand 64-bit registry virtualisation:

::RegOpenKeyEx(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, L"SOFTWARE\\Classes\\CLSID", 0, KEY_WOW64_32KEY|KEY_READ, &hkSource))

::RegOpenKeyEx(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, L"SOFTWARE\\Classes\\CLSID", 0, KEY_WOW64_64KEY|KEY_WRITE, &hkDest))

::SHCopyKey(hkSource, L"{DC6EFB56-9CFA-464D-8880-44885D7DC193}", hkDest, NULL);

(Error checking removed for brevity.)

That should copy the CLSID from the 32-bit registry area to the 64-bit registry area; however, while it returns success it doesn't appear to do anything.

(This was tested within a 32-bit app. Haven't tried from a 64-bit app, but it shouldn't make any difference as using KEY_WOW64_xxKEY should allow either type of app to view both registry areas.)

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