win_regedit – Add, change, or remove registry keys and values

Synopsis

Parameters

Parameter Choices/Defaults Comments
data
string
Value of the registry entry name in path.
If not specified then the value for the property will be null for the corresponding type.
Binary and None data should be expressed in a yaml byte array or as comma separated hex values.
An easy way to generate this is to run regedit.exe and use the export option to save the registry values to a file.
In the exported file, binary value will look like hex:be,ef,be,ef, the hex: prefix is optional.
DWORD and QWORD values should either be represented as a decimal number or a hex value.
Multistring values should be passed in as a list.
See the examples for more details on how to format this data.
delete_key
boolean
added in 2.4
    Choices:
  • no
  • yes ←
When state is 'absent' then this will delete the entire key.
If no then it will only clear out the '(Default)' property for that key.
hive
path
added in 2.5
A path to a hive key like C:\Users\Default\NTUSER.DAT to load in the registry.
This hive is loaded under the HKLM:\ANSIBLE key which can then be used in name like any other path.
This can be used to load the default user profile registry hive or any other hive saved as a file.
Using this function requires the user to have the SeRestorePrivilege and SeBackupPrivilege privileges enabled.
name
string
Name of the registry entry in the above path parameters.
If not provided, or empty then the '(Default)' property for the key will be used.

aliases: entry
path
string / required
Name of the registry path.
Should be in one of the following registry hives: HKCC, HKCR, HKCU, HKLM, HKU.

aliases: key
state
string
    Choices:
  • absent
  • present ←
The state of the registry entry.
type
string
    Choices:
  • binary
  • dword
  • expandstring
  • multistring
  • string ←
  • qword
The registry value data type.

aliases: datatype

Notes

Note

  • Check-mode -C/--check and diff output -D/--diff are supported, so that you can test every change against the active configuration before applying changes.

  • Beware that some registry hives (HKEY_USERS in particular) do not allow to create new registry paths in the root folder.

  • Since ansible 2.4, when checking if a string registry value has changed, a case-sensitive test is used. Previously the test was case-insensitive.

See Also

See also

win_reg_stat – Get information about Windows registry keys

The official documentation on the win_reg_stat module.

win_regmerge – Merges the contents of a registry file into the Windows registry

The official documentation on the win_regmerge module.

Examples

- name: Create registry path MyCompany
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany

- name: Add or update registry path MyCompany, with entry 'hello', and containing 'world'
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany
    name: hello
    data: world

- name: Add or update registry path MyCompany, with dword entry 'hello', and containing 1337 as the decimal value
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany
    name: hello
    data: 1337
    type: dword

- name: Add or update registry path MyCompany, with dword entry 'hello', and containing 0xff2500ae as the hex value
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany
    name: hello
    data: 0xff2500ae
    type: dword

- name: Add or update registry path MyCompany, with binary entry 'hello', and containing binary data in hex-string format
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany
    name: hello
    data: hex:be,ef,be,ef,be,ef,be,ef,be,ef
    type: binary

- name: Add or update registry path MyCompany, with binary entry 'hello', and containing binary data in yaml format
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany
    name: hello
    data: [0xbe,0xef,0xbe,0xef,0xbe,0xef,0xbe,0xef,0xbe,0xef]
    type: binary

- name: Add or update registry path MyCompany, with expand string entry 'hello'
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany
    name: hello
    data: '%appdata%\local'
    type: expandstring

- name: Add or update registry path MyCompany, with multi string entry 'hello'
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany
    name: hello
    data: ['hello', 'world']
    type: multistring

- name: Disable keyboard layout hotkey for all users (changes existing)
  win_regedit:
    path: HKU:\.DEFAULT\Keyboard Layout\Toggle
    name: Layout Hotkey
    data: 3
    type: dword

- name: Disable language hotkey for current users (adds new)
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Keyboard Layout\Toggle
    name: Language Hotkey
    data: 3
    type: dword

- name: Remove registry path MyCompany (including all entries it contains)
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany
    state: absent
    delete_key: yes

- name: Clear the existing (Default) entry at path MyCompany
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany
    state: absent
    delete_key: no

- name: Remove entry 'hello' from registry path MyCompany
  win_regedit:
    path: HKCU:\Software\MyCompany
    name: hello
    state: absent

- name: Change default mouse trailing settings for new users
  win_regedit:
    path: HKLM:\ANSIBLE\Control Panel\Mouse
    name: MouseTrails
    data: 10
    type: str
    state: present
    hive: C:\Users\Default\NTUSER.dat

Return Values

Common return values are documented here, the following are the fields unique to this module:

Key Returned Description
data_changed
boolean
success
Whether this invocation changed the data in the registry value.
data_type_changed
boolean
success
Whether this invocation changed the datatype of the registry value.

Sample:
True


Status

Red Hat Support

More information about Red Hat’s support of this module is available from this Red Hat Knowledge Base article.

Authors

  • Adam Keech (@smadam813)

  • Josh Ludwig (@joshludwig)

  • Jordan Borean (@jborean93)

Hint

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