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Help->About->System Info doesn't work on Vista

A customer (thanks Grady!) reported that choosing Help->About->System Info on Vista causes a MessageBox to display “Microsoft System Info cannot be found or run.”

 

Why is that?

 

Simple investigation: run Regedit on WinXP and Vista to inspect this key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Msinfo

 

On Vista, the Type is REG_EXPAND_SZ  and the Path  is C:\Windows\system32\msinfo32.exe

 

whereas on XP it’s type is REG_SZ and the Path is C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\MSInfo\MSInfo32.exe

 

The MSDN topic Registry Value Types says that REG_EXPAND_SZ can include environment variables, such as %PATH%. However, the Vista value does not have any “%” in it.

 

 

 

Published Tuesday, May 29, 2007 3:16 PM by Calvin_Hsia

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# re: Help->About->System Info doesn't work on Vista

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 7:38 PM by John Doe

Wht is REG_EXPAND_SZ relevant in this case?  Just because there are no environment variables to expand does't make the value invalid...

# re: Help->About->System Info doesn't work on Vista

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 7:06 AM by Stuart Dunkeld

> Why is REG_EXPAND_SZ relevant in this case?

VFP is (presumably) calling RegGetValue with the flag for REG_SZ, but needs to add the REG_EXPAND_SZ flag as well for running on Vista, as the function only looks for the types it's asked to.

> Just because there are no environment variables to expand doesn't make the value invalid

Localized or other versions of Vista might use environment variables.

# VFP9 SP2 / SEDNA USEFUL LINKS

Wednesday, August 15, 2007 11:03 AM by Cesar Chalom

Here are some of the links that I often visit regarding VFP9 SP2 and Sedna. The official Microsoft Visual...

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