Manually editing Windows Registry is fairly easy if you know what you are doing. At times, while attempting to modify a registry value or key, you might get an error with “Error Editing Value – Cannot edit: Error writing the value’s new contents” message.
You get the “Error Editing Value – Cannot edit: Error writing the value’s new contents” error if you don’t have the permissions to change or modify the Registry key or value which you are attempting to modify.
No, you don’t need to take ownership of Registry all the time. Only Registry keys or values that are throwing the above error require you take ownership. Note that you can’t take the ownership of an individual Registry value. Instead, you need to take the ownership of the parent key.
There are two ways to take ownership of Registry in Windows 10. The first method requires you make about a dozen of clicks but does the job without the help of a third-party utility. The first method requires using a third-party tool.
In this guide, we are discussing the best two methods out there to take ownership of Registry in Windows 10.
Method 1 of 2
Take ownership of Registry without using third-party tools
As said before, you don’t need to use a third-party tool to take ownership of Registry in Windows 10. Complete the given below directions to take ownership of Registry without using third-party tools.
Step 1: Open Registry Editor. To do so, type Regedit in Start menu search field and then press Enter key.
Step 2: In the Registry Editor, navigate to the key that want to take the ownership of. Please note that even if you want to change the ownership of a Registry value, you need to take the ownership of the Registry key under which the Registry value is located.
Step 3: Right-click on the Registry key. Click Permissions.
Step 4: Click Advanced button to open Advanced Security Settings.
Step 5: You should now see the Change link. Click the Change link to open Select User or Group dialog.
Step 6: In the Enter the object name to select field, type Administrators. Now, click Check Names button to make sure that the account exists on the PC.
Click OK button.
Step 7: At the Advanced Security Settings window, check Replace owner on subcontainers and objects and finally, click Apply button to take ownership of the key.
Method 2 of 2
Take ownership of Registry using RegOwnershipEx
Step 1: Download RegOwnershipEx zip file from here. Extract the zip file to get Windows 7 and Windows 8 folders. Open up the Windows 8 folder.
Depending on the type of Windows 10 you are running (see how to check if you are running 32-bit or 64-bit Windows 10), run the executable located in either x86 folder or x64 folder.
Step 2: Launch RegOwnershipEx utility. Click the Browse button next to Select the registry key field and select the Registry key that you want to take the ownership of.
Step 3: Click Take Ownership button to take the ownership of the selected Registry key. That’s it!
If you want to restore the original permissions, click Restore Ownership button.
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