diff --git a/lib/registry.js b/lib/registry.js
index cf10632..a400cd9 100644
--- a/lib/registry.js
+++ b/lib/registry.js
@@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ var api = {
         if (value.type === types.LPTSR) {
             // TODO not sure why buffer's utf8 parsing leaves in the unicode null
             // escape sequence. This is a work-around (at least on node 4.1)
-            value = value.toString().replace('\u0000', '');
+            value = value.toString('binary').replace('\u0000', '');
         }
 
         return value;