The Explorer left NavPane state information is stored in the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerModulesNavPane. Now when you occasionally open those folders like Favorites or your User ID (or more problematic is many program's File / Open dialog settings will reopen your User folder), after turning regkey read-only, when explorer or application file dialog is closed, the NavPane expanded folders regkey is not re-written, remaining at your preferred expanded/collapsed state. There is a registry key that captures the state of the open/close state of the main folders in the left explorer Nav-Pane, which can be set within the explorer left frame, explorer closed to set the reg key, then the reg key value manually turned to read-only.
Proper credit to the true problem-resolvers is contained at the destination link. I found a working answer at Microsoft's web site, hopefully cross-linking URLs is allowed but if removed from this forum let me know and I will detail it out here.
