Name

user profile

Synopsis

A collection of files that stores the desktop configuration and personal settings of a user.

Description

User profiles ensure that users have consistent desktop and application settings each time they log on to their machine. User profiles can also be stored on the network to enable users to access their desktop and personal settings from any machine on the network and can be configured to either allow or prevent users from modifying their settings.

A user profile stores information about a user’s:

  • Desktop settings, such as wallpaper, screen resolution, desktop icons, Start menu items, files stored in My Documents folder, and so on

  • Network connections, such as mapped drives and network shortcuts to shared folders and printers located on network servers

Types of User Profiles

There are three types of user profiles: local, roaming, and mandatory. These three types allow administrators a variety of ways of controlling users’ desktop environments.

Local User Profile

These are user profiles stored the local machine. A local user profile (or local profile) for a user is created the first time a user logs on locally to a machine. These local profiles are stored by default in the folder C:\Documents and Settings in subfolders each named after the username of a user who has logged on locally to the machine at least once. For example, the local profile for Administrator will be located in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator and consists of a series of subfolders ...

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