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Registry Keys for Open-Source Windows Apps

A community-driven reference of Windows registry keys created by popular open-source applications — for sysadmins, power users, and automation developers.


What is this?

When open-source applications are installed on Windows, they write entries to the Windows Registry for installation paths, uninstall information, user preferences, and more. This site documents those keys so you can:

  • Automate deployments — know exactly which keys to check or set in Chocolatey, Intune, or PowerShell scripts
  • Audit installations — verify what an app wrote to your registry
  • Clean up — remove leftover keys after uninstalling an app
  • Migrate settings — export the right keys to move a user's config to a new machine

Verified Applications

Application Version Installer Hives
7-Zip 23.01 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Audacity 3.4.2 .exe HKCU, HKLM
Brave Browser 1.63.169 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Bruno 1.21.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM
Bulk Rename Utility 3.4.4.4 .exe / Portable HKCU, HKLM
DBeaver 24.0.0 .exe HKLM
Docker Desktop 4.29.0 .exe HKLM, SYSTEM
FileZilla 3.66.5 .exe HKCU, HKLM
Flameshot 12.1.0 .exe / .msi HKCU, HKLM
Mozilla Firefox 123.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
GIMP 2.10.36 .exe HKCU, HKLM
Git Extensions 4.2.1 .msi HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Git for Windows 2.44.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM
GPU-Z 2.59.0 Portable HKCU
HandBrake 1.7.3 .exe HKCU, HKLM
HashCheck Shell Extension 2.4.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
HeidiSQL 12.6.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM
Inkscape 1.3.2 .exe HKCU, HKLM
KeePass Password Safe 2.55 .exe HKCU, HKLM
LibreOffice 7.6.5 .msi HKCU, HKLM
Node.js 20.11.1 .msi HKLM
Notepad++ 8.6.2 .exe HKLM
OBS Studio 30.0.2 .exe HKCU, HKLM
PuTTY 0.80 .msi HKCU, HKLM
Python 3.12.2 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
qBittorrent 4.6.3 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Signal Desktop 7.7.0 .exe HKCU, HKCR
Sublime Text 4169 .exe HKLM, HKCR
Telegram Desktop 4.16.6 .exe HKCU, HKCR
Oracle VM VirtualBox 7.0.14 .exe HKLM, SYSTEM
VLC Media Player 3.0.20 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Visual Studio Code 1.85.1 User .exe HKCU, HKCR
WinSCP 6.3.3 .exe HKCU, HKLM
Wireshark 4.2.3 .exe HKLM, HKCR, SYSTEM
WizTree 4.18 .exe / Portable HKCU, HKLM
Everything 1.4.1.1024 .exe HKLM, HKCU
foobar2000 2.1.5 .exe HKLM, HKCU
Greenshot 1.3.274 .exe HKLM, HKCU
Insomnia 9.3.3 .exe HKLM
MobaXterm 23.6 .exe HKLM, HKCU
Notepad2 4.23.04 .exe HKLM
Postman 10.22.13 .exe HKLM, HKCU
PowerToys 0.79.0 .exe HKLM, HKCU
ShareX 16.0.0 .exe HKLM
WSL 2.x Built-in HKLM, HKCU
balenaEtcher 1.19.21 .exe HKCU, HKLM
Calibre 7.6.0 .msi/.exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
CapFrameX 1.8.1 .exe HKCU, HKLM
CrystalDiskInfo 9.3.0 .exe HKLM
Espanso 2.2.1 .exe HKCU, HKLM
f.lux 4.120 .exe HKCU
KeePassXC 2.7.7 .msi/.exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
MusicBee 3.5.8698 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Nmap 7.94 .exe HKLM, HKCR
Obsidian 1.5.12 .exe HKCU
RustDesk 1.2.7 .exe HKCU, HKLM, SYSTEM
Sumatra PDF 3.5.2 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
AutoHotkey 2.0.11 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Bitwarden 2024.2.1 .exe HKCU
HWiNFO 7.72 .exe HKCU, HKLM
HxD Hex Editor 2.5.0.0 .exe / Portable HKCU, HKLM
IrfanView 4.66 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
mRemoteNG 1.77.3 .msi HKCU, HKLM
OpenVPN 2.6.9 .msi HKCU, HKLM, SYSTEM
Process Hacker 3.0.7478 .exe HKCU, HKLM, SYSTEM
Rufus 4.4 Portable HKCU
Syncthing 1.27.6 .exe HKCU, HKLM
WinMerge 2.16.38 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
FreeCAD 0.21.2 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
FurMark 2.3.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM
LMMS 1.2.2 .exe HKCU, HKLM
MediaInfo 24.01 .exe HKLM, HKCR
MPC-HC 2.3.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Nextcloud Desktop 3.12.3 .msi HKCU, HKLM, SYSTEM
PDFsam Basic 5.2.4 .exe HKCU, HKLM
ScreenToGif 2.41 .exe HKCU, HKLM
Mozilla Thunderbird 115.8.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
WinDirStat 2.1.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM
ZeroTier 1.14.0 .msi HKCU, HKLM, SYSTEM
Android Studio 2023.3.1 .exe HKCU, HKLM
BleachBit 4.6.2 .exe HKCU, HKLM
draw.io 24.2.5 .exe HKCU
Duplicati 2.0.8.1 .exe / .msi HKCU, HKLM, SYSTEM
Kdenlive 24.02.1 .exe HKCU, HKLM
mpv 0.37.0 Portable HKCU
PeaZip 9.7.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Rclone 1.66.0 Portable HKCU
Ventoy 1.0.99 Portable HKCU
XnView MP 1.7.2 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
CPU-Z 2.09.1 .exe / Portable HKCU, HKLM
Angry IP Scanner 3.9.1 .exe / Portable HKCU, HKLM
Clementine 1.4.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Clink 1.6.19 .exe / Portable HKCU, HKLM
ExifTool 12.82 Portable HKCU
JDownloader 2 2.0 .exe HKCU, HKLM
Jellyfin 10.9.7 .exe HKLM, SYSTEM
Krita 5.2.3 .exe / Portable HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
LibreWolf 124.0-1 .exe / Portable HKCU, HKLM, HKCR
Npcap 1.79 .exe HKLM, SYSTEM
Windows Terminal 1.19 MSIX / winget HKCU, HKLM

Machine-Readable Index

All entries are also available as index.json for use in scripts and tooling.

# Example: find all apps that write to HKCU
$index = Invoke-RestMethod "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/samibs/Registry-Keys-for-Open-Source-Applications-on-Windows/main/windows/index.json"
$index | Where-Object { $_.hives -contains "HKCU" } | Select-Object name, slug

Contributing

Want to add an app? See CONTRIBUTING.md and use the capture script:

git clone https://github.com/samibs/Registry-Keys-for-Open-Source-Applications-on-Windows
cd Registry-Keys-for-Open-Source-Applications-on-Windows
.\tools\export-reg-changes.ps1   # follow prompts to capture before/after install