Windows Vista

With the release of windows vista Microsoft did some changes which have to be taken care of by the shell.
The most important and trouble causing change is that a normal user not having admin privileges. This means that there are certain shell functions and registry access calls which can not be made anymore. All registry access has to be changed to either request admin access from the user or to use KEY_READ access.

This page will give an overview about what has changed


Shell Service Objects

The registry key which is listing the shell service objects has changed.

New registry key: 

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\ShellServiceObjects\

ID-Service List: 

{3BF043EF-A974-49B3-8322-B853CF1E5EC5} - Microsoft VolumeControlService.Class - 140496
{68ddbb56-9d1d-4fd9-89c5-c0da2a625392} - Unknown (stobject.dll) - 144002
{7007ACCF-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E} - Network Connections Tray - 144024
{7849596a-48ea-486e-8937-a2a3009f31a9} - PostBootReminder object - 155266
{A1607060-5D4C-467a-B711-2B59A6F25957} - Alt Tab - 155293
{AAA288BA-9A4C-45B0-95D7-94D524869DB5} - WPDShServiceObj Class - 155355
{C51F0A6B-2A63-4cf4-8938-24404EAEF422} - Unknown (cscui.dll)
{DA67B8AD-E81B-4c70-9B91-B417B5E33527} - Windows Search Shell Service Object - 156074
{E6FB5E20-DE35-11CF-9C87-00AA005127ED} - Web Check - 156481
{F20487CC-FC04-4B1E-863F-D9801796130B} - Sync Center Shell Service Object (Internal) - 15558
{fbeb8a05-beee-4442-804e-409d6c4515e9} - ShellFolder for CD Burning - 156639
{FD6905CE-952F-41F1-9A6F-135D9C6622CC} - WscNotify Class

All applications which are going to create those services have to create a .manifest file to make use of the 6.0 version of Microsoft.Windows.Common-Controls library. Without this manifest file an application will use the 5.0 version of the library which will result in access violations by some shell service objects!


Performance Data Object

In Windows Vista normal users accounts are locked out from access to the performance data registry key 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib

In order to get accesss and make modules like the cpu monitor work again open regedit.exe and change the access permissions for this key

  • right click the registry key -> permissons
  • click add and enter your vista username into the edit box
  • click ok and select your username from the list
  • in the "Allow" row check the "Read" box

Related MSDN Knowledge Base Articles:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/146906/en-us

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