Listview option removes registry key that does not exist

[comdlg32]

At 1c22ebf it shows that it is removing the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{1eeb5b5a-06fb-4732-96b3-975c0194eb39}\InprocServer32. The issue is that the CLSID is stored in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT{1eeb5b5a-06fb-4732-96b3-975c0194eb39}\InProcServer32 and not in HKCU.

[valinet]

Issues should be for issues, I said this multiple times. Why not ask first, confirm it's an issue, and then it gets moved here just fine...? Why is following some piece of advice so hard?

The application runs as the logged-in user, unelevated. It does not have access to write to keys in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Thus, any overrides are made using keys located in HKEY_CURRENT_USER. As you should probably be aware, usually, something in some path in HKEY_CURRENT_USER overrides the same path in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. As is the case here, writing in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{1eeb5b5a-06fb-4732-96b3-975c0194eb39}\InprocServer32 overrides whatever information is stored in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\CLSID\{1eeb5b5a-06fb-4732-96b3-975c0194eb39}\InprocServer32. By overriding that, I provide a non-working value for InprocServer32, and thus the component is not found and explorer falls back to using the legacy list view.

Also, specifically for your question, I think: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT is just a "shortcut" to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes. They both point to the same data store, which really is HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes. You can disregard it entirely and refer to it as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes, it's the same thing, it's just a convenience shortcut. So, the CLSID is indeed stored in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{1eeb5b5a-06fb-4732-96b3-975c0194eb39}\InProcServer32, which is the same as HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\CLSID\{1eeb5b5a-06fb-4732-96b3-975c0194eb39}\InProcServer32 and which I override using entries in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{1eeb5b5a-06fb-4732-96b3-975c0194eb39}\InProcServer32. This is the proper way to do it in my opinion, if one has to do it, not by removing the original information in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\CLSID/HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID as some guides on matters like this suggest. It is generally good to leave whatever Windows stores in the registry intact, in order to avoid potential issues down the road. Things in HKEY_CURRENT_USER you have full control of, plus, if you screw something up and don't remember about it, creating a user account is much easier than reinstalling the entire operating system.

I will close this and move to discussions, as I think it belongs there. Thanks.