Just in case you haven't spotted it yourself have a look at the applications settings improvements in VS 2005.

Earlier versions of VB.net gave you the app.config file which was a god send, but now you don't even have to write all the persistence/retrieval code.  In the properties for whatever visual element you have go to the ApplicationSettings property under Data and you can bind any control/form property to a value in your .config file. 

I use it all the time for form size/position persistance, last entered values, splitter sizing etc.etc. 

Simply superb, theres just no reason for an app not to save user preferences now, it's a 2 minute point and click job.