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Article ID: 269383 - Last Review: March 25, 2004 - Revision: 2.0

PRB: 'Error Accessing the System

Registry' Message When Displaying
VB/VBA References
View products that this article applies to.
This article was previously published under Q269383

On This Page
• SYMPTOMS
• CAUSE
• RESOLUTION
o Steps to Correct this Problem
• REFERENCES

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SYMPTOMS
When you access the References dialog box in the
Visual Basic integrated develo...
When you access the References dialog box in the Visual Basic integrated
development environment (IDE) or any Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) enabled
application, you receive the following error:
Error Accessing the System Registry
Also, when you access from REGEDT32.exe, some registry keys are dimmed and
inaccessible. For example:
HKEY_CLASS_ROOT\TypeLib\{...}

Other problems you may encounter with these Registry keys include:

• You cannot delete these keys, not even from

the local Administrator account.
• You cannot Assign or View Permissions.
 • You cannot Take Ownership of the keys.

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CAUSE
The cause of this problem is a full/Clean Installation of
Crystal Reports 8.0.0...
The cause of this problem is a full/Clean Installation of Crystal Reports 8.0.0.371.

Business Objects has documented this issue with Crystal Reports 8.0.0.371 in their own
Knowledge Base article:
'Error Accessing the System Registry' message after installing Crystal Reports 8
(http://support.businessobjects.com/library/kbase/articles/c2008211.asp)
According to Business Objects, this problem no longer occurs with Crystal Reports
8.0.0.441 or higher.
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RESOLUTION
WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you
may cause serious problems...
WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems
that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that
you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry
Editor at your own risk.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is dynamic and is built on startup. The

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes key is read into memory and is accessible
as HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. If you add a key to HKLM\Software\Classes, it is
immediately replicated to HKCR.
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Steps to Correct this Problem

First you need to figure out which registry key or keys are affected. This can be done
in two ways:

1. Use REGEDT32.exe to scan for keys that

are dimmed in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib
and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID.
 2. Use the RegMon utility from
www.sysinternals.com. Run the filtering processes
for Visual Basic, and then try accessing the
References dialog box in Visual Basic. When the
error occurs, switch to RegMon and make note of
the last keys which were successfully read or
written. (These should be from
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib or
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID.)

You can then fix the permission problem in the following ways:

1. Load REGEDT32 and locate the keys that

are dimmed from the preceding step 1, or the keys
that you noted from step 2. (Note: If you used step
2, once you locate the key, look at the key or sub-
key that immediately follows it in the Registry. If
you did not have the appropriate permissions to
access the key, it would not have even been logged
through the RegMon utility and, as such, the entry
you noted in step 2 will be the last successful
read/write. Therefore, the one that followed it
caused the error to occur.
2. On the Security menu, give the appropriate
permissions to the key so that you, and Visual
Basic, can access it:
o Administrators - Full Control
o Everyone - Read
o System - Full
o Users - Read
o Modify the user list to suite your
needs.

3. Sometimes REGEDT32 is not able to access

the key, and it gives you an error stating that the
security account information cannot be retrieved or
found. You can fix this in the following ways:

a. On the Control Panel, double-click the

Services icon.
b. Verify that the Task Scheduler is running
and start it if it is not.
 c. Open a command prompt. (DOS Prompt)
(Note: The window caption says Command
Prompt.)
d. Type the following command to schedule a
new command prompt:AT 13:10
/Interactive cmd.exe

e. Change 13:10 to whatever time you want

the cmd.exe (command prompt) to run: for
example, one or two minutes from your
current time.
f. Wait until this new command prompt starts.
(Note: The window caption is similar to
C:\Winnt\System32\MSTask.exe.) If the
command prompt fails to start, please see
Knowledge Base article 193852
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/193852/E
N-US/ ) "Task Scheduler May Fail to Run
Job When Scheduled"

Because the Task Scheduler is running

under the SYSTEM account, the new
command prompt is created running under
the SYSTEM security context.
g. From the new command prompt, type the
following, and then press enter:
REGEDT32.EXE Because you start this
process from the SYSTEM command
prompt, REGEDT32 is also running under
the SYSTEM security context.
h. Repeat the preceding step 2, and then reset
the permissions.

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REFERENCES
For additional information on Registry problems
caused by the Crystal Reports 8....
For additional information on Registry problems caused by the Crystal Reports
8.0.0.371 installation, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the
Microsoft Knowledge Base:
268553 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/268553/EN-US/ ) PRB: Visual Studio
Installation Problems if Crystal Reports 8 Is Installed
259569 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/259569/EN-US/ ) PRB: Installing Third-Party
Product Breaks Win2000 MDAC Registry Settings
For additional information on a possible problem with Task Scheduler, click the article
number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
193852 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/193852/EN-US/ ) Task Scheduler May Fail to
Run Job When Scheduled