XP Logon Screen -Programs running total and logged on detail

My understanding of the registry is that there is the static version of the registry that we interrogate using tools like FTK Registry Viewer, and then there is a live version of the registry which is volatile.

Hence there will be significant differences between what you see in Regedit, and Registry Viewer. This would certainly make sense in seeing the result that Jesterladd is reporting.

I just confirmed the HKCU\SessionInformation key does have your app count in live, but using a recent image of the same computer, the registry doesn't contain it. System involved is Windows XP SP3.