Quickly query a registry key

Sometimes you want to know quickly what a registry key is set to on a Windows machine.  Maybe you want to see what the windows update settings are because you are trying to deploy wsus.  Maybe you have just applied a security setting with GPO on a domain

From the command line you can quickly query the settings in the registry like this:

c:\>Reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate" /s

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate
    ElevateNonAdmins    REG_DWORD    0x1
    DoNotAllowSP    REG_DWORD    0x1

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsUpdate\AU
    NoAutoUpdate    REG_DWORD    0x0
    AUOptions    REG_DWORD    0x3
    ScheduledInstallDay    REG_DWORD    0x5
    ScheduledInstallTime    REG_DWORD    0xb
    NoAutoRebootWithLoggedOnUsers    REG_DWORD    0x1
    RescheduleWaitTimeEnabled    REG_DWORD    0x1
    RescheduleWaitTime    REG_DWORD    0x5
    RebootRelaunchTimeoutEnabled    REG_DWORD    0x1
    RebootRelaunchTimeout    REG_DWORD    0x1e
c:\>

The /s switch shows all sub keys.  Note the key values are dispalyed in hexadecimal so ScheduledInstallDay of 0x5 is day 5, starting counting from sunday as 1 so Thursday.  ScheduledInstallTime of 0xb is 11 in decimal so 11am.


The quickest way I know to convert hexadecimal to decimal if you are not sure is to use google - a search for "0xb as decimal" in google shows the answer of 11 above the other search results.