Sharing an example of how to work with the Registry in VB.NET.

In this example I am setting and retrieving the default folder
to be used with the OpenFileDialog to set the initial folder.

defaultFolder is a Public variable.

    Public Sub SaveSettingsToRegistry()
        Dim regKey As Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey
        regKey = Microsoft.Win32.Registry.CurrentUser.CreateSubKey("Software\YourAppName")
        regKey.SetValue("DefaultFolder", defaultFolder)
        regKey.Close()
    End Sub

    Public Sub LoadSettingsFromRegistry()
        Dim regKey As Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey
        Dim defaultVal As String = My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.MyDocuments
        regKey = Microsoft.Win32.Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey("Software\YourAppName")
        If regKey Is Nothing Then
            defaultFolder = defaultVal
        Else
            defaultFolder = regKey.GetValue("DefaultFolder", defaultVal)
            regKey.Close()
        End If
    End Sub