Registry entries set up by the Windows installer

[Paul Moore]

I'm trying to get information on what registry entries are set up by
the Python Windows installer, and what variations exist. I don't know
enough about MSI to easily read the source, so I'm hoping someone who
knows can help :-)

As far as I can see on my PC, the installer puts entries

HKLM\Software\Python\PythonCore\x.y

with various bits underneath. I think I've seen indications that
sometimes these are in HKCU, presumably for a "per user" install? If I
manually hack around in the registry, and have both HKLM and HKCU,
which one will Python use?

Furthermore, more of a Windows question than Python, but there's a
similar question with regard to the .py and .pyw file associations -
they can be in HKLM\Software\Classes or HKCU\Software\Classes. Which
takes precedence? I assume that the installer writes to HKLM for all
users and HKCU for per-user installs.

Is there anything else I've missed?

The reason I ask, is that I'm starting to work with virtualenv, and I
want to see what would be involved in (re-)setting the registry
entries to match the currently active virtualenv. virtualenvwrapper-
powershell seems to only deal with HKCU (which is a big plus on
Windows 7, as it avoids endless elevation requests :-)) but that
doesn't work completely cleanly with my all-users install. (Note: I'm
not entirely sure that changing global settings like this to patch a
per-console virtualenv is a good idea, but I'd like to know how hard
it is before dismissing it...)

Thanks,
Paul.