MSI Registry Table

This table holds all the miscellaneous (that is, not directly related to COM or COM+) information that the Installer needs to write to the Registry to install the application. The Registry table is used by the WriteRegistryValues action. This table contains the following columns:

Registry:

This column is an arbitrary key for the table which is used to identify a registry record.

Root:

This column indicates the Registry hive to be written to. It must have one of the values shown in below table.

Constant	Value	Explanation
None (Empty)	-1	i) For a per-user installation, writes to HKEY_CURRENT_USER. ii) For a per-machine installation, Writes to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
msidbRegistryRootClassesRoot	0	HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
msidbRegistryRootCurrentUser	1	HKEY_CURRENT_USER
msidbRegistryRootLocalMachine	2	HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
msidbRegistryRootUsers	3	HKEY_USERS

Key:

The Registry key to be written.

Name:

This column contains the name of the Registry value being written. If the column is null, then the value is written to the default for the Registry key. If the Value column is null, then this column should contain one of the special characters

Special Character	Corresponding Action
+	To create the key when the component is Installed.
-	To delete the key when the component is uninstalled
*	To create the key on installation and delete it on uninstallation

Value:

This is the actual data to write to the Registry value.

Special Character.	Meaning
If the value starts with #x	Stored as a hexadecimal value.
If the value starts with #%	Stored as an expandable string.
If the value starts with #	Stored as an integer.
The special string [~] is stored as a null.	If this string occurs, the value is stored as a list of strings.
If the string starts with [~]	The value is appended to any existing value.
If the string ends with [~]	The value is prepended to any existing value.
If the value starts with ##	Stored as a string starting with a single # sign.

Component:

This is a foreign key to the Component table that identifies the component controlling this Registry operation.