RegLoadKeyA function (winreg.h)
Creates a subkey under HKEY_USERS or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and loads the data from the specified registry hive into that subkey.
Applications that back up or restore system state including system files and registry hives should use the Volume Shadow Copy Service instead of the registry functions.
Syntax
LSTATUS RegLoadKeyA(
[in] HKEY hKey,
[in, optional] LPCSTR lpSubKey,
[in] LPCSTR lpFile
);
Parameters
[in] hKey
A handle to the key where the subkey will be created. This can be a handle returned by a call to RegConnectRegistry, or one of the following predefined handles:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE HKEY_USERS This function always loads information at the top of the registry hierarchy. The HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and HKEY_CURRENT_USER handle values cannot be specified for this parameter, because they represent subsets of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and HKEY_USERS handle values, respectively.
[in, optional] lpSubKey
The name of the key to be created under hKey. This subkey is where the registration information from the file will be loaded.
Key names are not case sensitive.
For more information, see Registry Element Size Limits.
[in] lpFile
The name of the file containing the registry data. This file must be a local file that was created with the RegSaveKey function. If this file does not exist, a file is created with the specified name.
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
There are two registry hive file formats. Registry hives created on current operating systems typically cannot be loaded by earlier ones.
If hKey is a handle returned by RegConnectRegistry, then the path specified in lpFile is relative to the remote computer.
The calling process must have the SE_RESTORE_NAME and SE_BACKUP_NAME privileges on the computer in which the registry resides. For more information, see Running with Special Privileges. To load a hive without requiring these special privileges, use the RegLoadAppKey function.
Note
The winreg.h header defines RegLoadKey as an alias that automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that is not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.
Requirements
| Requirement | Value |
|---|---|
| Minimum supported client | Windows 2000 Professional [desktop apps only] |
| Minimum supported server | Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only] |
| Target Platform | Windows |
| Header | winreg.h (include Windows.h) |
| Library | Advapi32.lib |
| DLL | Advapi32.dll |