Batch Script - Deleting from the Registry

Deleting from the registry is done via the REG DEL command. Note that in order to delete values from the registry you need to have sufficient privileges on the system to perform this operation.

Syntax

The REG DELETE command has the following variations. In the second variation, the default value will be removed and in the last variation all the values under the specified key will be removed.

REG DELETE [ROOT\]RegKey /v ValueName [/f] 
   REG DELETE [ROOT\]RegKey /ve [/f] 
   REG DELETE [ROOT\]RegKey /va [/f]

Where

• ValueName − The value, under the selected RegKey, to edit.

• /f − Force an update without prompting "Value exists, overwrite Y/N".

Example

@echo off
REG DELETE HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console /v Test /f
REG QUERY HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console /v Test

In the above example, the first part is to delete a key into the registry under the location HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Console. This key has the name of Test. The second command just displays what was deleted to the registry by using the REG QUERY command. From this command, we should expect an error, just to ensure that our key was in fact deleted.

Output

Following will be the output of the above program. The first line of the output shows that the ‘Delete’ functionality was successful and the second output shows an error which was expected to confirm that indeed our key was deleted from the registry.

The operation completed successfully. 
ERROR: The system was unable to find the specified registry key or value.