Hi all, I encountered the following problem when trying to install a package I had generated with distutils: When the installer was run, it would go through the steps nicely, but towards the end, it generated two errors: "Could not open key Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall" "Could not create key dsp-py2.1" At first I thought the problem might be the result of installing Python as Administrator, and the package as just a user, so I re-installed Python as a user, but I still got the same error. I ran my test on Win2K with both Python 2.1 and 2.2, and I always got the same result. I tracked the code generating the error to install.c in distutils-1.0.2/misc (see below). I did some digging and it appears that to use KEY_ALL_ACCESS, the code must be running with Administrator privileges. I checked the CVS archives to see if KEY_ALL_ACCESS is still being used, and it hasn't been changed. I made the following changes to install.c (from Distutils 1.0.2), recompiled, and it works now. 796c796 < KEY_CREATE_SUB_KEY, ---

KEY_ALL_ACCESS,

806c806 < KEY_WRITE, ---

KEY_ALL_ACCESS,

1177c1177 < KEY_WRITE, ---

KEY_ALL_ACCESS,

1208c1208 < KEY_WRITE, ---

KEY_ALL_ACCESS,

I chose KEY_CREATE_SUB_KEY for the open, since that is the only operation that will be performed on it. For the new key itself, I chose KEY_WRITE, since that was also the minimal operation. While I was at it, I changed the code for deleting the registry key and value to also use the minimal KEY_WRITE. The last two changes allowed the uninstaller to work properly when run as a normal user. I'm no expert on distutils or the registry, so please let me know if I've missed something obvious. Thanks! Phil ------------ install.c ------------------------ <SNIP> result = RegOpenKeyEx(HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, KeyName, 0, KEY_ALL_ACCESS, &hKey); if (result != ERROR_SUCCESS) MessageBox(GetFocus(), "Could not open key", KeyName, MB_OK); sprintf(buffer, "%s-py%d.%d", meta_name, py_major, py_minor); result = RegCreateKeyEx(hKey, buffer, 0, NULL, 0, KEY_ALL_ACCESS, NULL, &hSubkey, &disposition); if (result != ERROR_SUCCESS) MessageBox(GetFocus(), "Could not create key", buffer, MB_OK); <SNIP> --------------------------------------------------------------------