Remove Windows Registry path or key on Windows-like systems - Ansible module win_regedit

Name: Ansible Automation Platform By Example
Author: Luca Berton

How to automate the deletion of the Windows Registry “Test” path with one key “hello” under a specific hive Windows-like systems with Ansible Playbook using win_regedit module.

Remove Windows Registry path or key on Windows-like systems - Ansible module win_regedit

March 17, 2022
Posted by Luca Berton
ansible, registry, module, windows, windows server

How to Remove Windows Registry key on Windows-like systems with Ansible?

Changing registry values manually can be time-consuming and error-prone. Ansible includes built-in capabilities for managing individual key-value pairs in an idempotent way. I’m going to show you a live Playbook and some simple Ansible code. I’m Luca Berton and welcome to today’s episode of Ansible Pilot.

Ansible remove Windows Registry on Windows-like systems

ansible.windows.win_regedit
Get information about Windows registry keys

Let’s talk about the Ansible module win_regedit. The full name is ansible.windows.win_regedit , which means that is part of the collection of modules specialized to interact with Windows target host. It’s a module pretty stable and out for years and it works in Windows and Windows Server operating systems. It adds, changes, or removes registry keys and values.

Parameters

path string - The full registry key path including the hive to search for
name string - Name of the registry entry in the path parameters.
state string - present/absent

The only mandatory parameter is “path” which is the full registry key path including the hive to search for. You might like to specify a single “name” of the name of the registry entry. If you want to delete all the paths, basically all the Windows Registry tree but if you want only the single entry you need also to specify the “name” of it. Please be careful! The essential parameter for our use-case is “state” to specify if we would like to add or modify (“present” option) or remove (“absent” option).

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Playbook

How to Remove Windows Registry key on Windows-like systems accessing the Windows Registry with Ansible Playbook. Specifically, I’m going to delete a Windows Registry key located in “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Test”.

code

---
- name: windows registry remove
  hosts: all
  vars:
    mypath: 'HKLM:\Software\Test'
  tasks:
    - name: registry remove path
      ansible.windows.win_regedit:
        path: "{{ mypath }}"
        state: absent

execution

ansible-pilot $ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/win/inventory windows/registry_remove.yml
PLAY [windows registry remove] ********************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ****************************************************************************
ok: [WindowsServer]
TASK [registry remove path] ***********************************************************************
changed: [WindowsServer]
PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
WindowsServer              : ok=2    changed=1    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0
ansible-pilot $

idempotency

ansible-pilot $ ansible-playbook -i virtualmachines/win/inventory windows/registry_remove.yml
PLAY [windows registry remove] ********************************************************************
TASK [Gathering Facts] ****************************************************************************
ok: [WindowsServer]
TASK [registry remove path] ***********************************************************************
ok: [WindowsServer]
PLAY RECAP ****************************************************************************************
WindowsServer              : ok=2    changed=0    unreachable=0    failed=0    skipped=0    rescued=0    ignored=0
ansible-pilot $