How to make App-V package to read from or write to the local registry - Appv 5.0

Question : In some cases, application might require to read or write to the native registry locations. In this case how to proceed with App-V 5.0.

Answer : We can make use of PassThroughPaths key located in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\AppV\Subsystem\VirtualRegistry to read or write to local registry.

Usually when an application is launched it reads registry in the following order.

1. COW location.
2. Package location.
3. Native registry.

If we use PassThroughPaths key it can only be read/write from the native registry, bypassing the Package and COW registry locations. Pass-through locations are global to the machine (Not per package) meaning all virtual packages will make use of the path specified in PassThroughPaths to read or write to the local registry.

How to configure : It can configured by adding the path to the key PassThroughPaths in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\AppV\Subsystem\VirtualRegistry which is a REG_MULTI_SZ (Multi string).

Example we are adding HKLM\Software\Test to the PassThroughPaths so that the virtual application sees or writes only to the local registry.

In this case all published virtual applications will make use of local HKLM\Software\Test to read/write.