Hexchat: Windows 8.1 Association for irc:// urls unavailable

Not sure where to put this issue so please direct me in getting this where it belongs in order to see the light of day.

Simply put, Hexchat does not present itself to Windows as an option for association with the irc:// url protocol. Per this answer, the necessary registry keys would be something like:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes
    Hexchat //this is the ProgID, subkeys are its properties
        (Default) = URL:IRC Protocol //name of any type passed to this
        DefaultIcon
            (Default) = %ProgramFiles%\HexChat\hexchat.exe,0 //for example
        shell
            open
                command
                    (Default) = %ProgramFiles%\HexChat\hexchat.exe --url="%1" //for example

and

HKLM\SOFTWARE\
    Hexchat //or wherever appropriate to define capabilities
        Capabilities
            (ApplicationDescription) = Hexchat is an IRC client //for example
            (ApplicationIcon) = %ProgramFiles%\HexChat\hexchat.exe,0 //other apps list this here too
            (ApplicationName) = Hexchat //for example
            URLAssociations
                (irc) = Hexchat //ProgID from above

and

HKLM\SOFTWARE
    RegisteredApplications
        (Hexchat) = HKLM\SOFTWARE\Hexchat\Capabilities //Where capabilities were defined

I noticed that hexchat registers the appropriate keys under HKLMSOFTWAREClassesirc and I just set up the remaining keys using that as the ProgID described above. Doing this has it behaving as desired and being an available option under the protocol association for the IRC protocol in Windows 8.1.