In case you missed it, back in October, Shay wrote a cool set of functions for working with the registry. Here's the list:
Get-RegBinary
Get-RegDWord
Get-RegDefault
Get-RegExpandString
Get-RegMultipleString
Get-RegQuadWord
Get-RegString
Get-RegValueKind
New-RegSubKey
Remove-RegSubKey
Remove-RegSubKeyTree
Set-RegBinary
Set-RegDWord
Set-RegDefault
Set-RegExpandString
Set-RegMultipleString
Set-RegQuadWord
Set-RegString
Test-RegSubKey
Test-RegValue
Go read his article as it explains the syntax and gives a bunch of samples. Very useful stuff!