Switch Between HKCU and HKLM in Windows 10 Registry Editor

Registry Editor is an essential tool for system administrators, geeks and regular users who want to change the Windows operating system's hidden settings which are not available via its user interface. In Windows 10, it is possible to switch quickly between Registry keys in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch and HKEY_CURRENT_USER branch. For example, you can go from the Run subkey in HKCU to a similar key in the HKLM branch. Here is how.

With Windows 10, Microsoft has added the ability to quickly jump between similar Registry keys in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch and HKEY_CURRENT_USER branch. For example, the Software subkey exists in the following branches:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software

To switch between them, do the following.

Switch Between HKCU and HKLM in Registry Editor in Windows 10

1. Open Registry Editor.
2. Go to the desired Registry key, for example, to the Software subkey mentioned above.Tip: see how to jump to the desired registry key with one click.
3. Assuming that you finished working with the opened key in HKCU branch and want to continue with its counterpart under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subkey, right click the Software subkey and choose "Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" command in the context menu:And vice versa - from the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software key, you can switch to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software instantly.

Remember that this trick works only with keys that have similar paths under HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE root keys. For example, such keys are:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

That's it.

Support us

Winaero greatly relies on your support. You can help the site keep bringing you interesting and useful content and software by using these options: