Forgot to mention above that the registry key edits also set the automation to run on reboot by entering a task script. I discovered that often tests were not running correctly when placed directly in the task.vbs file because the Windows desktop was not initializing. It turns out that the startup tasks placed in the registry must end before Windows continues startup.
I got around this by using task.vbs to call a second script. This way, the startup command for task.vbs completes very quickly. Windows finishes starting up after task.vbs is done. Meanwhile, the second script has a wait time in it to let Windows finish before running its own commands.
See task-sample.vbs for an example of calling another script. This will be "task.vbs". Then see task-script-sample.vbs for an idea of what complex things you can do in your second script. The name of this script does not matter, so long as you call it from task.vbs.
CC nisgupta