Windows 10 and issues with the Registry Search function

[Spork Schivago]

Hello,

Has anyone experienced any problems with RegEdit and Windows 10? Specifically with searching through the registry?

I got a machine here running Windows 10 and whenever I try using the search function in RegEdit, it seems to go into an infinite loop. Searching the Internet, it seems after some November update to Windows 10, RegEdit seems to have issues with keys longer than 255 characters.

From what I've read, there should never be keys longer than 255 characters in the registry. With a clean install, fully updated, there's no keys that are over this limit, however, the site said a lot of PCs seem to have this problem. They're not sure where the 255+ keys are coming from. The site I found said RegEdit will search through the registry and work fine until it comes across a key that's greater than 255 characters in length. It'll start eating up CPU resources and go into an infinite loop. When you cancel RegEdit, it's supposed to crash and then restart. When I cancel the search, it doesn't seem to crash.

Here's an article on the symptom:
http://www.myce.com/news/windows-10-...ry-keys-78123/

I believe this is the original article but it's in a different language. I think Deutsch but because I don't speak Deutsch, I do not know for certain:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldu...02.html?s=ecym

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Windows 10 and issues with the Registry Search function

Second time searching, RegEdit did in fact crash. It might have crashed the first time but I might not have been paying attention.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Windows 10 and issues with the Registry Search function

I think I found the problem keys. They're Microsoft keys I believe and maybe because the hardware could differ on each person's machine, perhaps the error doesn't happen on everyone's machine.

On the one I'm currently looking at, I can search up to:

{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}\##?#IDE#CdRomTSSTcorp_CDDVDW_SH-S223C________________SB05____#5&7fbcda6&0&1.0.0#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

Inside that key is a key called #. Inside the # key is a key called Properties

The very next key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceClasses\{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}\##?#STORAGE#Volume#_??_USBSTOR#Disk&Ven_Generic&Prod_USB_CF_Reader&Rev_1.01#058F63626376&1#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

Inside that ke is a key called #. Inside the # key is a key called #, inside the # key is a key called #. It seems to go on forever like that.

The next key after the CF_Reader one is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\DeviceClasses\{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}\##?#STORAGE#Volume#_??_USBSTOR#Disk&Ven_Generic&Prod_USB_MS_Reader&Rev_1.03#058F63626376&3#{53f56307-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}#{53f5630d-b6bf-11d0-94f2-00a0c91efb8b}

This key has the same issue. Infinite number of # key's.


With the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key, if you count those characters for the CF_Reader and for the MS_Reader, you'll notice they're 273 characters long.

The registry, I believe, shouldn't have characters over 255 characters long.

[Per Hansson]

Re: Windows 10 and issues with the Registry Search function

I've got the same issue on Server 2016 Technical Preview 4

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Windows 10 and issues with the Registry Search function

So it's just not a problem with 10. Thanks for reporting on the issue Per Hansson. It's been reported to Microsoft, hopefully they release a patch either for regedit or they fix the troublesome keys. I think the troublesome keys would be harder to fix. I'm sure there's some Windows components that probably depend on those keys for something.