How can I make my program run on startup by adding it to the registry?

Question

I have a VC++ console application that I want to make run on startup. I want to do this by adding it to the registry I have already tried what I found on another post about this but it didnt work, I logged out and then signed back in but the program didnt start. Here is the code I used

string progPath = "C:/Users/user/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/Windows/MyApp.exe";
HKEY hkey = NULL;
long createStatus = RegCreateKey(HKEY_CURRENT_USER, L"/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run", &hkey);//Creates a key


long status = RegSetValueEx(hkey, L"MyApp", 0, REG_SZ, (BYTE *)progPath.c_str(), sizeof(progPath.c_str()));

Any help is appreciated

Answer 1

There are three problems with your code.

1. You need to use \ instead of /.

2. You are passing 8bit Ansi data to a function that expects 16bit Unicode data instead. Use std::wstring instead of std::string.

3. You are passing the wrong value for the data size. It expects a byte count that includes the null terminator.

Try this instead:

std::wstring progPath = L"C:\\Users\\user\\AppData\\Roaming\\Microsoft\\Windows\\MyApp.exe";
HKEY hkey = NULL;
LONG createStatus = RegCreateKey(HKEY_CURRENT_USER, L"SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Run", &hkey); //Creates a key       
LONG status = RegSetValueEx(hkey, L"MyApp", 0, REG_SZ, (BYTE *)progPath.c_str(), (progPath.size()+1) * sizeof(wchar_t));

Answer 2

you can do this:

HKEY hKey;
const char* czStartName = "MyApplication";
const char* czExePath   = "C:\\Users\\user\\AppData\\Roaming\\Microsoft\\Windows\\MyApp.exe";

LONG lnRes = RegOpenKeyEx(  HKEY_CURRENT_USER,
                            "SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Run",
                            0 , KEY_WRITE,
                            &hKey);
if( ERROR_SUCCESS == lnRes )
{
    lnRes = RegSetValueEx(  hKey,
                            czStartName,
                            0,
                            REG_SZ,
                            (unsigned char*)czExePath,
                            strlen(czExePath) );
}

RegCloseKey(hKey);

the czStartName is the name in registry of your application. czExePath is the full path of the executable application to run at startup. and the last is the length of the full path of your executable program.

• if you are on windows 7 then you have to run the application as administrator to be able edit registry. remember windows 7 uses UAC.

or open MSVC as administrator then it will have the privilege to edit registry.

Answer 3

A program that requires elevation (i.e. running as Administrator) can't be set to automatically run at startup. See: How does one run a program at startup that requires UAC elevation? Since you app is placed in "\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\MyApp.exe", I assume this path is protected and reserved to programs that requires elevation. That might be the reason why it doesn't work for you.