Upon installation of things, access is generally denied to part of the registry

[overlydifficult]

Recently I tried to install 2 different things: a game and AVG Free. The game installed fine, but when I patched it there was an error, something about not being able to create or delete a ( 1 ) registry key. Tried the game online and it worked fine, but still curious. More recently I tried to install AVG free, and this is exactly what it says every time:
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Error details

Local machine: installation failed

Installation:
Error: Action failed for registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows: creating registry key....
Access is denied.    <---------- Yup.

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So this is happening now. With everything, I guess. So some things will end up working, others will not. This is a problem.

The game install went fine until I ran it and it downloaded and patched it. AVG failed at Local Machine.

Don't know what to think. I uninstalled all of my anti-malware (Spybot S&D, Malware-Bytes', SUPERAntiSpware, SpywareBlaster) to rule that out immediately.

Another thing I checked was services, particularly Remote Registry. I don't know if this is relevant here, but at a glance it would definitely seem so. Evidently it's automatic by default -- mine was disabled. Enabled it, did reboot, same stuff happens.

So, I don't know. Any help would really be appreciated. Don't think the solution is that mysterious or complicated, just out of ideas. Alternate way to 'force-start' a service?

[Allan]

OS?

[overlydifficult]

OS?

Windows XP Media Center Edition

[Allan]

Are you logged in as admin when you try to install the software? If so, follow the instructions in the following link for using the subinacl tool to change registry permissions: http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2006/09/04/739820.aspx

[overlydifficult]

Are you logged in as admin when you try to install the software? If so, follow the instructions in the following link for using the subinacl tool to change registry permissions: http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2006/09/04/739820.aspx

Alright, I read it and it looks like it may fix the problem, so thank you a lot for this.

Though due to recent unrelated issues with my computer I'm extremely tentative about doing anything out of the ordinary to it. Based on what I know, this looks to be simple and relatively inconsequential if something were to go wrong, but I have to ask: Is it? If I do everything properly should I be getting the sweaty palms while this is running?

[Allan]

I've run it a dozen or more times on various systems and never had a problem. Having said that, anytime you make registry changes there is always the possibility of something going wrong. If I were you I'd use ERUNT to backup the registry and even better, I'd create an image of the drive. Then you can do whatever you like without fear of problems from which you can't recover.

[overlydifficult]

I've run it a dozen or more times on various systems and never had a problem. Having said that, anytime you make registry changes there is always the possibility of something going wrong. If I were you I'd use ERUNT to backup the registry and even better, I'd create an image of the drive. Then you can do whatever you like without fear of problems from which you can't recover.

It fixed the AVG install issue. Game thing, not, so it may be unrelated. Thanks for the help (I clicked ty button :] ).