Help keep my Windows registry changes from, well, changing.
January 5, 2010 8:31 AM Subscribe
I'm having some problems will changes I've made to my Windows registry "sticking." I'm running Windows XP SP3.
I have to store files in several different specific places (on various local and network drives) so I've added these places to the common dialog places bar by adding keys here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32\Placesbar
Generally it works great and does exactly what I want except for one pesky location. When I first set this up one of my network locations was \\share\username, so that's how I set up the registry entry. Later the IT people here changed the way we access this drive to \\share\home so I changed the key. The problem is that, seemingly at random, the key reverts back to \\share\username. The IT helpdesk people here suggested changing the key to the drive I map the share to so I tried that the last time it reverted, but it has changed back to the original value twice now. The IT people assure me they that have no mechanism that is somehow restoring my registry to some previous state. In the past it has reverted every few weeks or so, but most recently it reverted sometime between December 22nd and 31st, 2009. I changed it on the 31st, logged off my computer, went home sick, and them came back in on January 5th to find the value had reverted. I hadn't logged onto my computer in the intervening days.
Right now I have 5 Place values plus the (Default) value (which is "(value not set)") that point to various locations on my local computer, another network drive, and the mapped network drive. The one mapped network drive is the only one that changes back to the original value. I've never changed the other values. If it matters the problematic one is value #3 (Place2).
Any ideas why is might be happening and how I can keep this from happening in the future?
I have to store files in several different specific places (on various local and network drives) so I've added these places to the common dialog places bar by adding keys here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\comdlg32\Placesbar
Generally it works great and does exactly what I want except for one pesky location. When I first set this up one of my network locations was \\share\username, so that's how I set up the registry entry. Later the IT people here changed the way we access this drive to \\share\home so I changed the key. The problem is that, seemingly at random, the key reverts back to \\share\username. The IT helpdesk people here suggested changing the key to the drive I map the share to so I tried that the last time it reverted, but it has changed back to the original value twice now. The IT people assure me they that have no mechanism that is somehow restoring my registry to some previous state. In the past it has reverted every few weeks or so, but most recently it reverted sometime between December 22nd and 31st, 2009. I changed it on the 31st, logged off my computer, went home sick, and them came back in on January 5th to find the value had reverted. I hadn't logged onto my computer in the intervening days.
Right now I have 5 Place values plus the (Default) value (which is "(value not set)") that point to various locations on my local computer, another network drive, and the mapped network drive. The one mapped network drive is the only one that changes back to the original value. I've never changed the other values. If it matters the problematic one is value #3 (Place2).
Any ideas why is might be happening and how I can keep this from happening in the future?
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If you don't use roaming profiles, none of this applies.
posted by BrokenEnglish at 10:52 AM on January 5, 2010