How to change HomeGroup owner in Win 7?

Greetings all,

My home network's HomeGroup is owned by a PC that is no longer present. (It was accidentally left on the roof of my car...before a trip on the freeway.) Now I would like to change the HomeGroup owner to a PC I still have.

I found no way to do this through the Win 7 Pro GUI. So I searched the registry for instances of the lost computer's name.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\HomeGroup\UIStatusCache | ModifierSystem

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\HomeGroup\HME\Members | 18-3D-A2-1B-8D-70

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\HomeGroup\HME\Members | B4-99-BA-E3-0C-A1

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\HomeGroup\HME\Members | CC-52-AF-05-68-34

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\HomeGroupProvider\ServiceData | OwnerMachineName

This location also contains related keys named Owner (login on OwnerMachineName) and OwnerId <lengthy hex string>

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\services\HomeGroupProvider\ServiceData\Members\<same lengthy hex string> | ComputerName

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\services\HomeGroupProvider\ServiceData | OwnerMachineName

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\services\HomeGroupProvider\ServiceData\Members\<same lengthy hex string> | ComputerName

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\HomeGroupProvider\ServiceData\ | OwnerMachineName

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\HomeGroupProvider\ServiceData\Members\<same lengthy hex string> | ComputerName

It appears that the locations containing the trio Owner, OwnerID, and OwnerMachineName are where the HomeGroup control panel gets its information about the existing HomeGroup. The other locations simply include the computer name as a member of the HomeGroup, one among peers.

I tried deleting the keys containing the computer name, but was prevented from doing so: "Error while deleting key". Could possibly switch the key's owner to me or admins, but am now wondering if there's a better way to accomplish this.

So I would like to either change the owner of the HomeGroup, or erase all traces of a pre-existing HomeGroup so the computers have to scan the current reality. Is there a way?

Thanks.

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