No, they will still work, you can have your plugins in any location and as many locations you like. The regedit will just change the Windows default location, and for future plugin installs of plugins that take that info in, that will show as the default path, which of course you can change during install.
 
I just always hated that SONAR hijacked it, and that the majority of plugins you install default to the Cakewalk path, requiring you to change it during install, and if I skipped through quickly I would end up with plugins in the Cakewalk directory, I hated that, I want my plugins where I want them.
 
It's no biggie, it's just a default Windows location, doesn't mean much.

TheSteven
 
That reg setting only effects plugins that look for it.
 

Well dur, I already said that.

Matron Landslide

TheSteven
 
That reg setting only effects plugins that look for it.
 

Well dur, I already said that.

Maybe you just thought you did, or meant to, or thought that in making a different point it was implied.
But actually... you didn't.
So you can keep your dur.  No need to be rude. 
 
The Windows registry location isn't actually specified in the VST spec which is why you see the variances in the way different devs handle it. 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VST
is not the Windows default setting for the the VST Path it's just one of the most commonly used locations for storing it.
 

Thank you too for this tip.
dan