Just an FYI. After spending a while (hours) trying to figure out why the "Desktop Manager" was not available to all users on my XP machine I made the following discovery. When you set up the powertoys with the following command line in RunOnceEx

"%cdrom%\Apps\PowerToys\DeskmanPowertoySetup.exe" /s /v/qn

all the regisrty values go to HKCU and not HKLM. Therefore after the install of the PowerToys you may want to run the following Registry updates.

[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{1530F7EE-5128-43BD-9977-84A4B0FAD7DF}]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{709C6E11-538F-4759-86AC-6ACB302AA0DE}]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{B48A93BC-5E8D-472B-8FE2-E53302C4548C}]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\CLSID\{EFB97CB8-a4a4-4357-a261-002FFAED0267}]



[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{1530F7EE-5128-43BD-9977-84A4B0FAD7DF}]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{1530F7EE-5128-43BD-9977-84A4B0FAD7DF}\InProcServer32]
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"
@="K:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\phototoys.dll"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{709C6E11-538F-4759-86AC-6ACB302AA0DE}]
@="Desktop Manager"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{709C6E11-538F-4759-86AC-6ACB302AA0DE}\Implemented Categories]
@=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{709C6E11-538F-4759-86AC-6ACB302AA0DE}\Implemented Categories\{00021492-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
@=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{709C6E11-538F-4759-86AC-6ACB302AA0DE}\InProcServer32]
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"
@="K:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\msvdm.dll"


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{B48A93BC-5E8D-472B-8FE2-E53302C4548C}]
@="Taskbar Magnifier"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{B48A93BC-5E8D-472B-8FE2-E53302C4548C}\Implemented Categories]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{B48A93BC-5E8D-472B-8FE2-E53302C4548C}\Implemented Categories\{00021492-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
@=""

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{B48A93BC-5E8D-472B-8FE2-E53302C4548C}\InprocServer32]
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"
@="K:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\mag.dll"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{EFB97CB8-a4a4-4357-a261-002FFAED0267}]
@="CD Burn Slideshow Hook"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{EFB97CB8-a4a4-4357-a261-002FFAED0267}\InprocServer32]
@="K:\\WINDOWS\\system32\\slideshow.dll"
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

This will work for three of the PowerToys

1) Desktop Manager

2) Taskbar Magnifier

3) CD Burn Slideshow

Hope this saves someone so time.

Bryan

I've actually been pondering this very problem myself this morning, was about to post a query about it.

I've been trying to get the task switcher powertoy to work. So does this mean I just need to find the registry keys in HKCU for the taskswitcher powertoy and also import them to HKLM or is it a bit more complicated than this?

Actually I don't seem to have the problem with the Task-switcher (on a side note I am not liking the task switcher so much - it slows down my alt-tab on my P4 2.8HT machine).

The only powertoys I had the problem with were the three in the OP.

Bryan