Is there an Actions log anywhere?

http://www.macecraft.com/bugtracker/

laserfan wrote

I just did a Registry Compaction and in the dialog saw that there was an error (something about the SECURITY key).

This sometimes happens. I'd guess it has something to do with access rights, but for some reason PowerTools cannot compact this hive because Windows denies access to it. But it's not a major issue because the hive contains very small amounts of data so no compaction is usually required anyway.

laserfan wrote

Anyway I closed things up and wanted to come here to report the error, but I can't seem to find it anywhere i.e. does not jv16 PT have logs anywhere that record what it's done, and errors it has encountered??? A search on "logs" in the HB turned-up nothing for me.

PowerTools does not save any error messages automatically. But if you run it in Debug Mode, it generates a log that contains all actions you do, and that also contains all possible error messages as well.

jv16 wrote

laserfan wroteI just did a Registry Compaction and in the dialog saw that there was an error (something about the SECURITY key).

This sometimes happens. I'd guess it has something to do with access rights, but for some reason PowerTools cannot compact this hive because Windows denies access to it. But it's not a major issue because the hive contains very small amounts of data so no compaction is usually required anyway. ...

Registry Compactor, SECURITY hive PT2009 1.9.0.606

Observations:

• The permissions for C:\Windows\System32\config\SECURITY give "Full control" to SYSTEM and to the Administrators group (checked on three Vista systems).
  

  
  

  The exact Registry Compactor error message is "Failed to open registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY"!."
  

  
  

  One Vista system has "Full control" for that key for both SYSTEM and the Administrators group. The error message does not occur.
  

  
  

  Another Vista system has "Full control" for that key for SYSTEM, but not for the Administrators group. The error message does occur.
  

  
  

  When RegEdit is used to give "Full control" permissions to the Administrators group, the error message no longer occurs.
  

  
  

  So there is a manual way to eliminate the error message.
  

  
  

  On the same Vista system:
  

  • PT2009 and PT2010 get the error message.
    

    
    

    PT2008, PT2007, and PT2006 do not get the error message.
    

    
    

    NTREGOPT gets no error message and actually compresses the hive.

Question:

• Does the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY" really need to be "opened?" The path to the hive is not in that key …
  

  
  

  ... and on three Home Premium Vista systems, the key is empty.