OK, so that kind of worked, but I had to use the second method (scheduling a task to write the registry entries on windows user login).
However, now I have a new problem. The keyboard is overzealous, and pops up whenever I click into ANY field. Numeric, dropdowns, text, it doesn't matter. It's really getting in the way. I'm not sure that this solution really works well for what I need. It's fine temporarily, but it can't be like this long-term.