I found three things wrong with the toolbar save restore process.

1. The toolbar's savetoolbar method does not create the registry entry in proper location. MS 182943.
2. The toolbar's restoretoolbar method needs a delay provided by a timer event. MS 191105.
3. Microsoft's suggested 1 millisecond delay is not long enough for toolbars with a lot of buttons.

If you set a Toolbar control's AllowCustomize property to True, then the user can double-click on it to add, remove, and rearrange the Toolbar's buttons. This program saves and restores the configuration for particular users.

The form's Initialize event handler prompts for a user name and saves it in the m_UserName variable. The form's Load event handler enables the Timer1 timer control and sets its Interval property to 50 milliseconds.

Private m_UserName As String

Private Sub Form_Initialize()
    ' Get the user's name. In a more secure application,
    ' you would also get and verify a password.
    m_UserName = InputBox("User Name", "User Name")
    m_UserName = "Rod"
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Load()
    'Interval=1 suggested by MicroSoft Workaround Article
    ' 191105
    'I found that you need to Increase Interval When you
    ' have many buttons.
    Timer1.Enabled = True
    Timer1.Interval = 50
End Sub

Private Sub Timer1_Timer()
    ' Revised Restore the Toolbar - MS Workaround Article
    ' 191105
    ' Notice how the two keys are separated During Restore.
    tbrActions.RestoreToolbar _
        "Software\howto_save_restore_toolbar", "Toolbar", _
        m_UserName
    Timer1.Enabled = False
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Unload(Cancel As Integer)
    
'    ' Original Save the Toolbar state - per VB
' documentation
'    tbrActions.SaveToolbar _
'        "Software\howto_save_restore_toolbar", _
'        "Toolbar", m_UserName

' MS Article 182943
' The key argument of the SaveToolbar method is ignored.
' The following example will actually store the value
' "Toolbar1" at the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\User1
' rather than HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppName\User1 as you might
' expect:
' Toolbar1.SaveToolbar "AppName", "User1", "Toolbar1"
    
    ' Revised Save the Toolbar state - MS Workaround
    ' Notice how two keys were combined for save.
    tbrActions.SaveToolbar _
        "", "Software\howto_save_restore_toolbar\Toolbar", _
        m_UserName
End Sub

The user can restore all of the buttons by clicking the dialog's Reset button. The user must then remove any undesired buttons and rearrange the remaining buttons. Cumbersome but better than nothing.