Notifies the caller about changes to the attributes or contents of a specified registry key.

Syntax

LONG WINAPI RegNotifyChangeKeyValue(
  __in      HKEY hKey,
  __in      BOOL bWatchSubtree,
  __in      DWORD dwNotifyFilter,
  __in_opt  HANDLE hEvent,
  __in      BOOL fAsynchronous
);

Parameters

hKey [in]

A handle to an open registry key. This handle is returned by the RegCreateKeyEx or RegOpenKeyEx function. It can also be one of the following predefined keys:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG

HKEY_CURRENT_USER

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

HKEY_USERS

This parameter must be a local handle. If RegNotifyChangeKeyValue is called with a remote handle, it returns ERROR_INVALID_HANDLE.

The key must have been opened with the KEY_NOTIFY access right. For more information, see Registry Key Security and Access Rights.

bWatchSubtree [in]

If this parameter is TRUE, the function reports changes in the specified key and its subkeys. If the parameter is FALSE, the function reports changes only in the specified key.

dwNotifyFilter [in]

A value that indicates the changes that should be reported. This parameter can be one or more of the following values.

Value	Meaning
REG_NOTIFY_CHANGE_NAME 0x00000001L	Notify the caller if a subkey is added or deleted.
REG_NOTIFY_CHANGE_ATTRIBUTES 0x00000002L	Notify the caller of changes to the attributes of the key, such as the security descriptor information.
REG_NOTIFY_CHANGE_LAST_SET 0x00000004L	Notify the caller of changes to a value of the key. This can include adding or deleting a value, or changing an existing value.
REG_NOTIFY_CHANGE_SECURITY 0x00000008L	Notify the caller of changes to the security descriptor of the key.

 

hEvent [in, optional]

A handle to an event. If the fAsynchronous parameter is TRUE, the function returns immediately and changes are reported by signaling this event. If fAsynchronous is FALSE, hEvent is ignored.

fAsynchronous [in]

If this parameter is TRUE, the function returns immediately and reports changes by signaling the specified event. If this parameter is FALSE, the function does not return until a change has occurred.

If hEvent does not specify a valid event, the fAsynchronous parameter cannot be TRUE.

Return Value

If the function succeeds, the return value is ERROR_SUCCESS.

If the function fails, the return value is a nonzero error code defined in Winerror.h. You can use the FormatMessage function with the FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM flag to get a generic description of the error.

Remarks

This function detects a single change. After the caller receives a notification event, it should call the function again to receive the next notification.

This function cannot be used to detect changes to the registry that result from using the RegRestoreKey function.

If the specified key is closed, the event is signaled. This means that an application should not depend on the key being open after returning from a wait operation on the event.

If the thread that called RegNotifyChangeKeyValue exits, the event is signaled. To continue to monitor additional changes in the value of the key, call RegNotifyChangeKeyValue again from another thread.

This function must be called on a persistent thread. If the calling thread is from a thread pool and it is not persistent, the event is signaled every time the thread terminates, not just when there is a registry change. To ensure accurate results, set the thread pool maximum equal to the thread pool minimum using the SetThreadpoolThreadMaximum and SetThreadpoolThreadMinimum functions, or create your own thread using the CreateThread function. (For the original thread pool API, specify WT_EXECUTEINPERSISTENTTHREAD using the QueueUserWorkItem function.)

This function should not be called multiple times with the same value for the hKey but different values for the bWatchSubtree and dwNotifyFilter parameters. The function will succeed but the changes will be ignored. To change the watch parameters, you must first close the key handle by calling RegCloseKey, reopen the key handle by calling RegOpenKeyEx, and then call RegNotifyChangeKeyValue with the new parameters.

Each time a process calls RegNotifyChangeKeyValue with the same set of parameters, it establishes another wait operation, creating a resource leak. Therefore, check that you are not calling RegNotifyChangeKeyValue with the same parameters until the previous wait operation has completed.

To monitor registry operations in more detail, see Registry.

Examples

The following program illustrates how to use RegNotifyChangeKeyValue.

#include <windows.h>
#include <tchar.h>
#include <stdio.h>

//void main(int argc, char *argv[])
void __cdecl _tmain(int argc, TCHAR *argv[])
{
   DWORD  dwFilter = REG_NOTIFY_CHANGE_NAME |
                     REG_NOTIFY_CHANGE_ATTRIBUTES |
                     REG_NOTIFY_CHANGE_LAST_SET |
                     REG_NOTIFY_CHANGE_SECURITY; 

   HANDLE hEvent;
   HKEY   hMainKey;
   HKEY   hKey;
   LONG   lErrorCode;

   // Display the usage error message.
   if (argc != 3) 
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("Usage: notify [HKLM|HKU|HKCU|HKCR|HCC] [<subkey>]\n"));
      return;
   }

   // Convert parameters to appropriate handles.
   if (_tcscmp(TEXT("HKLM"), argv[1]) == 0) hMainKey=HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE;
   else if(_tcscmp(TEXT("HKU"), argv[1]) == 0) hMainKey=HKEY_USERS;
   else if(_tcscmp(TEXT("HKCU"), argv[1]) == 0) hMainKey=HKEY_CURRENT_USER;
   else if(_tcscmp(TEXT("HKCR"), argv[1]) == 0) hMainKey=HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT;
   else if(_tcscmp(TEXT("HCC"), argv[1]) == 0) hMainKey=HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG;
   else 
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("Usage: notify [HKLM|HKU|HKCU|HKCR|HCC] [<subkey>]\n"));
      return;
   }

   // Open a key.
    lErrorCode = RegOpenKeyEx(hMainKey, argv[2], 0, KEY_NOTIFY, &hKey);
   if (lErrorCode != ERROR_SUCCESS)
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("Error in RegOpenKeyEx (%d).\n"), lErrorCode);
      return;
   }

   // Create an event.
   hEvent = CreateEvent(NULL, TRUE, FALSE, NULL);
   if (hEvent == NULL)
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("Error in CreateEvent (%d).\n"), GetLastError());
      return;
   }

   // Watch the registry key for a change of value.
   lErrorCode = RegNotifyChangeKeyValue(hKey, 
                                        TRUE, 
                                        dwFilter, 
                                        hEvent, 
                                        TRUE);
   if (lErrorCode != ERROR_SUCCESS)
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("Error in RegNotifyChangeKeyValue (%d).\n"), lErrorCode);
      return;
   }

   // Wait for an event to occur.
   _tprintf(TEXT("Waiting for a change in the specified key...\n"));
   if (WaitForSingleObject(hEvent, INFINITE) == WAIT_FAILED)
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("Error in WaitForSingleObject (%d).\n"), GetLastError());
      return;
   }
   else _tprintf(TEXT("\nChange has occurred.\n"));

   // Close the key.
   lErrorCode = RegCloseKey(hKey);
   if (lErrorCode != ERROR_SUCCESS)
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("Error in RegCloseKey (%d).\n"), GetLastError());
      return;
   }
   
   // Close the handle.
   if (!CloseHandle(hEvent))
   {
      _tprintf(TEXT("Error in CloseHandle.\n"));
      return;
   }
}

Requirements

See Also

RegCloseKey

RegDeleteKey

RegEnumKeyEx

RegEnumValue

Registry Functions

RegQueryInfoKey

RegQueryValueEx

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Build date: 10/8/2009