Have you ever pondered over the question of how to modify the Registry settings of other Users in Windows 11/10? Well, Windows users can edit and make changes to the registry settings for only the user account that is currently logged in as when a user attempts to open the Registry Editor, the Windows display registry hives of the currently logged-in account only.
If your system has multiple user accounts and you wish to modify the registry of another user, you need to log in to the desired account to modify their registry settings. However, with enough credentials, it is possible to modify the registry setting of other users without logging into each account every time.
In order to edit the Windows Registry of other users, one must first identify where the registry hive of that particular user is stored. Each user has their information stored in HKEY_CURRENT _USER registry hive which is unique to each user, and in all the new versions of Windows, the file NTUSER.DAT gets loaded as soon as the user logs into the system. To modify the registry settings of another user one must first identify the user directory file of another user you want to modify.
In this article, we explain how to modify another user’s registry in Windows 11/10. Before modifying the registry settings, it is recommended to back up the Registry.
Edit Registry for another User in Windows 11/10
Follow the below steps to load the registry of another user and make changes to other users’ registry settings.
Load the registry hive of another user
To edit another user’s registry, one must first load their registry which is stored in the User directory file NTUSER.DAT C:\Users\<username>\ntuser.dat.
To load the user’s ntuser.dat file use the reg.exe in the command prompt or Power Shell.
Type Command Prompt in Start Menu and Run as administrator.
Type the following command specifying the user’s key, file and path of NTUSER.DAT to load another user’s NTUSER.DAT file-
reg load HKU\<username> C:\Users\<username>\ntuser.dat
Make sure to replace <username> with the name of the user’s folder you want to edit the registry.
Once the loading is successfully completed, open Run.
Type regedit and click on OK to open the Registry Editor.
Navigate to the following path Computer\HKEY_USERS and select the username specified in the command prompt.
Once done, the user can have access to all the registry keys and make changes to the registry keys of another user without damaging the main user’s account.
For your general information, the registry hive is located in the %Windir%\System32\Config folder as one of the following files:
- SAM represents Sam hive.
- SECURITY represents Security hive.
- SOFTWARE represents Software hive.
- SYSTEM represents System hive.
Hope this helps!
NOTE: After loading and modifying another user’s registry, you have to unload it manually using reg unload HKU\<username>. If you do not manually unload it, they will not be able to log in under their profile. Thanks Brandon & Matt.
How do I see other users’ registry?
To view other users’ Registry, as explained in this post, go to the HKEY_USERS folder > File > Choose Load Hive option. Locate a non-active NTUSER. DAT file and click on the Open button to load the file.
Can you remotely edit the registry?
Yes, you can remotely edit the registry of a client computer from a host computer. To do this, open Registry Editor on the Host computer. On the File menu, select Load Hive. Select the registry hive on the Client computer that you want to remotely edit and click OK.
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