Monday, April 26, 2010

How to change registered owner and registered organization for Visual Studio 2008 and 2010

Here are steps to change registered owner and registered organization for Visual Studio 2008 and 2010

  • Open registry editor (type 'regedit' at Run command, clicks OK button, and select 'Yes' if you have UAC confirmation).
  • Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion (or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Note\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion on Widows x64).
  • Change 2 string values RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization as you expected (create them if they don't exist).
  • Restart Windows and open Visual Studio, you will see new registration info.

After doing above steps, if you still see old registration info, please add these steps:

For Visual Studio 2010:
  • Delete vs000223.dat from C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\. It's splash screen for Visual Studio 2010.
  • Run Visual Studio 2010, now you should see a blank splash, there is no registration info, don't be worry.
  • Close Visual Studio 2010, then open it again. Now you should see new registration info.

For Visual Studio 2008:
  • Delete vs000223.dat from C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0. It's splash image for Visual Studio 2008. Now if you run Visual Studio 2008, you will see a strange splash 'Visual Studio code name 'Orcas'.
  • Run 'devenv /setup' from C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ (or C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\ on Windows x64).
  • Open Visual Studio 2008, now you should see new registration info.

Enjoy your Visual Studio with your own registration info.

Note: The directory paths here are on Windows 7, so if you use XP or Vista, they're maybe different.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Worked a treat - VS2010 W7 x64

Thanks

Anonymous said...

Thanks,

Worked like a charm

Anonymous said...

Works for changing the registered organization, but has no effect upon registered user... Win7/64.

Anonymous said...

Excellent! (For XP you might have to go to /Documents and Settings/All Users/Application Data/Microsoft/VisualStudio/10.0 . Otherwise search for the vs000223.dat file.) Thanks for such a great tip!

Stephen said...

I had the same problem as above where this changed the registered organization but no effect on the registered owner.

To change the registered owner I had to change the registry field:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Registration\UserName

Or for 32 bit system:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Registration\UserName

I found this information at:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vsnetsetup/archive/2010/05/11/the-visual-studio-2010-help-about-dialog-box-and-the-splash-screen-shows-registered-username-and-registered-organization-as-microsoft.aspx

--Steve

Anonymous said...

Thanks you sir!

Dustin said...

FYI, using the devenv /setup path works for VS2010 btw, u won't need to delete that file. but make sure u run it as administrator if on vista or 7. works on both 64 and 32

-ReArmedHalo

Jinal said...

Thanx Man, worked for me.

Krzysztof Radzimski said...

It works, thanks

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing! Just found out that the instruction for VS2008 also works for VS2005. :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks! I didn't know about file to delete, is the step that I was missing.

n122vu said...

This worked for me - for registered owner:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Registration\UserName

for company name:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\10.0\Registration\3000.0x0000\UserName