Logger Pro allows the user to set a number of preferences, such as where experiment files are located, or whether to use large toolbar buttons. These preferences are saved in the Windows registry for each user. This means that another user account will not see the preference settings made in the first account.

Often this per-user behavior is what is desired, but sometimes an instructor will want to impose some setting on all users. This can be done on Windows only, and it requires some editing of the registry. Work only on a backed-up registry. Do not do this if you are not comfortable editing the registry; a corrupted registry can render your computer unusable.

Launch Logger Pro, and set the desired preferences. Quit Logger Pro.

Open regedit. Find the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Vernier Software\Logger Pro 3\Application. Right click on it, and choose export. Save the file to a convenient location.

Open the file in a text editor. You will see a long list of preferences. Remove all but the preferences that you want to impose on all users. It is important to remove most settings, since you will not want to impose things like the contents of the recent files list. Finally, change HKEY_CURRENT_USER to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE where it occurs. Save the file.

32-bit OSes:
Double click the file; you’ll get a prompt from regedit asking confirmation that you want the keys added to the registry. Click through the dialogs to add the keys.

64-bit OSes:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE has both 32 bit and 64 bit sections. Logger Pro is a 32 bit program so you need to install the keys to the 32 bit section by using the 32 bit version of regedit. Right click on the file, select “Open With”|”Choose Default Program…” Uncheck the box for “Always Use the selected program to open this kind of file” then select Browse and select the file “C:Windows\SysWOW64\regedt32.exe” then press OK; you’ll get a prompt from regedit asking confirmation that you want the keys added to the registry. Click through the dialogs to add the keys.

Now, all users on that computer will have the preferences present in the LOCAL_MACHINE key set, and they will be unable to change those preferences permanently. They will be able to go to preferences and change a setting for that session, but on relaunching, the setting will return to the imposed setting.

The edited registry key can be moved to other computers and added to their registries. An easy way to do that is run the command “regedit -s filename.reg” on each machine, (where filename.reg is the file you created above and use C:Windows\SysWOW64\regedt32.exe instead of regedit on 64-bit OSes) You can also set a custom group policy for the domain.

Requires Logger Pro 3.5 or newer.