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Access to the registry key 'Global' is denied.

After migrating some .NET applications from an old server to a brand new Windows Server 2019 instance, we stumbled over a range of errors.

Here is the first error we got:

Server Error in '/AppServices' Application.

Access to the registry key 'Global' is denied.

Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the registry key 'Global' is denied.

ASP.NET is not authorized to access the requested resource. Consider granting access rights to the resource to the ASP.NET request identity. ASP.NET has a base process identity (typically {MACHINE}\ASPNET on IIS 5 or Network Service on IIS 6 and IIS 7, and the configured application pool identity on IIS 7.5) that is used if the application is not impersonating. If the application is impersonating via < identity impersonate="true"/>, the identity will be the anonymous user (typically IUSR_MACHINENAME) or the authenticated request user.

To grant ASP.NET access to a file, right-click the file in File Explorer, choose "Properties" and select the Security tab. Click "Add" to add the appropriate user or group. Highlight the ASP.NET account, and check the boxes for the desired access.

Source Error:

An unhandled exception was generated during the execution of the current web request. Information regarding the origin and location of the exception can be identified using the exception stack trace below.


Stack Trace:

 

[UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the registry key 'Global' is denied.]

   Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey.Win32Error(Int32 errorCode, String str) +144

   Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey.InternalGetValue(String name, Object defaultValue, Boolean doNotExpand, Boolean checkSecurity) +640

   Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey.GetValue(String name) +62

   System.Diagnostics.PerformanceMonitor.GetData(String item) +121

   System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounterLib.GetPerformanceData(String item) +177

   System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounterLib.get_CategoryTable() +138

   System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounterLib.CategoryExists(String machine, String category) +72

   System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounterCategory.Exists(String categoryName, String machineName) +155

   Akka.Monitoring.PerformanceCounters.ActorPerformanceCountersMonitor.Init(IEnumerable`1 akkaMetrics) in D:\olympus\akka-monitoring\src\Akka.Monitoring.PerformanceCounters\ActorPerformanceCountersMonitor.cs:102

 

[HttpException (0x80004005): Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.]

   System.Web.HttpRuntime.FirstRequestInit(HttpContext context) +532

   System.Web.HttpRuntime.EnsureFirstRequestInit(HttpContext context) +111

   System.Web.HttpRuntime.ProcessRequestNotificationPrivate(IIS7WorkerRequest wr, HttpContext context) +714

 

Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.7.3429.0

 

What’s happening here?

As part of our application initialization, we try to create some performance counters for Akka.Net. As the application is running under the AppPoolIdentity it has no rights to register the performance counters in the registry, explaining the ‘Access to the registry key 'Global' is denied. ‘ error message.

First step to fix this is to add the AppPool account to the Performance Monitor Users group on the server:

Unfortunately we are not there yet, but that is for the next post…

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