Tree View problem - Logic needed!!

Hope you are all well!

Right then, my app needs to re-populate a tree view at runtime with the nodes that were in it from the last time the application was closed.

I write the structure to the registry like this:-

VB Code:

Private Sub mapNodes(ByVal myNode As TreeNode)
 
        Dim subNode As TreeNode
        Dim i As Integer
 
        'Iterate through each sub-node.
        For Each subNode In myNode.Nodes
            'If this node has children, recurse through them...
            If subNode.GetNodeCount(False) > 0 Then
                mapNodes(subNode)
            Else
                'this node has no children so map it's full path.
                nodeMap += subNode.FullPath & ":"
            End If
        Next
 
    End Sub

This basically writes the following string to the registry (elsewhere in the code).

User's Home Folder\Word\Docs\Personal:User's Home Folder\Word\Docs\Business:User's Home Folder\Excel:User's Home Folder\Powerpoint:

As you can see, each full node path is seperated by a colon, and each individual node and it's sub-nodes are seperated by a slash.

I know how to retrieve the string back from the registry but am having enormous trouble getting the information back into the correct tree node structure.

Any ideas??