RegDeleteTreeA function (winreg.h)

Deletes the subkeys and values of the specified key recursively.

Syntax

LSTATUS RegDeleteTreeA(
  [in]           HKEY   hKey,
  [in, optional] LPCSTR lpSubKey
);

Parameters

[in] hKey

A handle to an open registry key. The key must have been opened with the following access rights: DELETE, KEY_ENUMERATE_SUB_KEYS, and KEY_QUERY_VALUE. For more information, see Registry Key Security and Access Rights.

This handle is returned by the RegCreateKeyEx, RegCreateKeyTransacted, RegOpenKeyEx, or RegOpenKeyTransacted function, or it can be one of the following Predefined Keys:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG
HKEY_CURRENT_USER
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
HKEY_USERS

[in, optional] lpSubKey

The name of the key. This key must be a subkey of the key identified by the hKey parameter. If this parameter is NULL, the subkeys and values of hKey are deleted.

Return value

If the function succeeds, the return value is ERROR_SUCCESS.

If the function fails, the return value is a nonzero error code defined in Winerror.h. You can use the FormatMessage function with the FORMAT_MESSAGE_FROM_SYSTEM flag to get a generic description of the error.

Remarks

If the key has values, it must be opened with KEY_SET_VALUE or this function will fail with ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED.

To compile an application that uses this function, define _WIN32_WINNT as 0x0600 or later. For more information, see Using the Windows Headers.

Note

On legacy versions of Windows, this API is also exposed by kernel32.dll.

Note

The winreg.h header defines RegDeleteTree as an alias which automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.

Requirements

Requirement Value
Minimum supported client Windows Vista [desktop apps only]
Minimum supported server Windows Server 2008 [desktop apps only]
Target Platform Windows
Header winreg.h (include Windows.h)
Library Advapi32.lib
DLL Advapi32.dll

See also

RegDeleteKey

RegDeleteKeyEx

RegDeleteKeyTransacted

Registry Functions