Greetings.
I have several Windows services/applications that were written in Visual Studio.
There are hardcoded references to registry entries that the services/applications use to get database connections, queue locations, et cetera.
Here's an example of an existing variable from our code that gets a registry value that the app uses to get a root reference for some setting values:
private const string REG_KEY_SERVICE = @"Software\Company\App\AppName";
So, that being said, when our apps/services were installed on a 32 bit OS, there was no problem, however when the same apps/services are installed on a 64 bit OS, the registry settings are set here:
Software\Wow6432Node\Company\App\AppName
Since these settings are not in our configuration logic, we'd need to do a code change to something like this:
private const string REG_KEY_SERVICE = @"Software\Wow6432Node\Company\App\AppName";
This is not something that we want to do since it involves a version change and all of the change control processes that goes along with that.
To get around having to make a version change, on our dev environment, we are copying the registry entries from:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432\Company\App\AppName
TO
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Company\App\AppName
My question: Is there a risk with this workaround and is this advisable?
Thanks.
doug