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I have a parent and child account on a Windows 10 box. I want to edit the child's registry to turn off the ability to make web searches from the start menu (I need to add a key to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows).

If I make that change from the parent account, I'm editing only the parent's values, not the child's. The child account isn't able to run regedit. When I try to open regedit "as administrator" and enter the parent login, HCU is loaded with the parent's registry, not the child's.

I figured the only option was to log into the parent account and use "Load Hive" to pull up the child account NTUSER.dat, but then I get the error "This file is in use", even though that account isn't running.

Is there any way to edit the registry for a non-admin child account?

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2 Answers 2

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The answer was embarrassingly simple, but I'll leave this up in case someone else runs into the same mental block:

Temporary change the child account to an admin account, log into the child account to use regedit, then change it back.

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  • The alternative would have been to run Regedit “as Administrator” account then input your accounts username and password
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jun 29 at 16:45
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I'm surprised that you are getting a "The file is in use" error. I load other account hives all the time using just the method that you mentioned. In fact, I recently wrote a script that automatically loads all user hives in order to change values simultaneously.

Try this: log into the child account, use "Switch User" to log into your admin account, and you should find the child hives already loaded into regedit under HKEY_USERS.

If that does not work for some reason, try the program LockHunter to determine whether some third-party program is locking NTUSER.dat.

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