The Mysterious RunOnce Key

Christopher Rice

          Back in my old packaging days, we used to use the RunOnce key all of the time.  It seems that this key is a mystery to many people in the field, so i am going to clear it up (a little).

Back in my old packaging days, we used to use the RunOnce key all of the time. It seems that this key is a mystery to many people in the field, so i am going to clear it up (a little).

         Basically, the RunOnce key will allow you to run anything once after the machine is rebooted.  This can be nice if you need to kick off a script or a batch file to complete an install or something like that.

          If you want to see the RunOnce key, crack open your registry editor by typing regedt32 into your run box:

          The location of the RunOnce key is: 

My Computer/HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Current Version/RunOnce

           When you are there (by default) you will see:

          If you are going to be using this, I would strongly advise thorough testing.

Let me know if you have any questions,