Writing to registry on terminal servers

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Writing to registry on terminal servers
 
Christian Kolbas




Posts: 2
Joined: 2014-08-11
Hello Everyone!

I currently have an Outlook plug-in that stores some user info/settings in the registry. Can someone point me in a direction of how I can do this on a terminal server?

I am still fairly new to terminal servers so any direction would be appreciated.

Thanks
Posted 11 Aug, 2014 10:48:25 Top
Andrei Smolin


Add-in Express team


Posts: 18787
Joined: 2006-05-11
Hello Christian,

I regard a terminal server as a PC with several users on it. If you have several users, the settings can be "for all users" and "for a given user". An example of a "for all users" setting would be something meaning "use this or that calculation algorithm". An example of a per-user setting would be "I need my panes to be green".

The "for all users" settings should be saved to HKLM, to a key which is accessible by every user on the PC. Per-user settings should be stored in HKCU. Again, the key must be accessible by the user. You can create a per-user key when your add-in is started for the first time. As to the "for all users" settings, this depend on the way you deploy the add-in.

You can install your add-in for all users on the PC; this will be a per-machine add-in. Installing it requires administrative privileges. It is quite natural to create a "for all users" key in the installer. Nevertheless, installing an add-in in this way can be a bad idea. Imagine your customer decides the add-in must be available for some users on the terminal server, not for all users. In this case, you'll need to develop some schema allowing the administrators to specify what users are allowed and what are not. Then your add-in would read this setting and disable its functionality for the specified users. In addition, to install an update, you'll need ALL users on the terminal server to close the host application(s) of your add-in. This may be unacceptable.

Consider installing an add-in for a given user only; this will be a per-user add-in. Installing it doesn't require administrative privileges and all problems above will never occur. There's another problem however: you'll need instruct an administrator to create a "for all users" key. Note that a per-user add-in can be installed using Group Policy: you pass a corporate administrator a .MSI installing your per-user add-in and it uses Group Policy to install your Office extension for a specific group of users in the corporate network; the
installation and registration occurs when a user logs on to the domain.

All the deployment options above are described in the manual, see the PDF file in the folder {Add-in Express}\Docs on your development PC.


Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
Posted 12 Aug, 2014 04:14:04 Top
Christian Kolbas




Posts: 2
Joined: 2014-08-11
Good Morning Andrei,

Thank you very much for your explanation. This helped me understand some of the issues I was facing.

Take care,
Christian
Posted 12 Aug, 2014 10:47:47 Top
Andrei Smolin


Add-in Express team


Posts: 18787
Joined: 2006-05-11
You are welcome!


Andrei Smolin
Add-in Express Team Leader
Posted 13 Aug, 2014 00:49:22 Top