How to Clear Your Last Registry Editor Location (Last Regedit)?

Windows' built-in Registry Editor (regedit.exe) remembers the registry key you last had open, so it reopens at the same spot next time you launch it. That single piece of information is stored as one value: LastKey, under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Regedit.

It's a small trace, but a pointed one: it proves Registry Editor was used at all, something most people never touch, and it names the exact key that was being examined. If someone was checking a specific autorun entry, a piece of installed software's configuration, or one of the privacy-relevant keys covered elsewhere on this site, LastKey records exactly which one.

Unlike most artifacts on this site, there's no MRU list here, no order, no multiple entries, just one value overwritten each time Registry Editor is closed. It's the simplest trace covered on this site, but still a direct pointer to exactly what was being looked at.

Yes. PrivaZer detects and clears the LastKey value as part of a scan, and can target it on its own. It's a single per-user value (HKEY_CURRENT_USER), so no administrator rights are required and no reboot is needed, PrivaZer simply removes it directly.

Yes. Clearing it doesn't affect your files, your installed programs or system stability, and it has no effect on the registry keys themselves, only on where Registry Editor happens to open next. The only visible effect is that Registry Editor opens at its default location the next time you launch it, instead of wherever you left off.

Yes, the moment you open Registry Editor and navigate anywhere, a new LastKey value is written. That's normal, it's how the feature is meant to work. Run PrivaZer again afterward if you'd rather it stay cleared.

Everything else covered here, shellbags, RecentDocs, the ComDlg32 keys, Amcache and the rest, builds up a list over time: multiple entries, an MRU order, sometimes timestamps. LastKey is just one value, overwritten every time, with no history to speak of. What it lacks in richness, it makes up for in specificity, it names the exact registry location someone was examining, which can matter a great deal in the right context even though it's the smallest artifact on this site.