Microsoft Windows NT Server White Paper 27
at remote workstations. The All Users profile is workstation-specific and con-
tains the common groups for just that computer. If you want to specify
programs, shortcuts, or directories to be used by everyone who logs on to a
specific workstation, you should place these in the All Users profile directory.
If you need to establish domain-wide common groups and settings, use the
System Policy Editor to modify registry entries on remote workstations so that
they point to server directories for common groups, as opposed to pointing to
the local All Users profile. Later, if you need to remove the domain-wide set-
tings and have remote users point to the All Users profile from the local
workstations once again, you’ll need to change the default path used in the
System Policy Editor to:
%systemroot%\Profiles\All Users\Start Menu\Programs
Refer to the System Policy portion of this guide for specific procedures.
Default User Template Profiles
During Windows NT 4.0 Workstation installation, the setup program creates a
generic User Profile, the Default User, and saves it in a folder in the profiles
directory. These default settings define an environment for new users who log
on to the computer locally or who log on to a domain that does not contain a
network Default User profile. When a new user logs on, a profile directory is
created for that user, and the default settings are written to the new user’s di-
rectory. (The profile may or may not then be customizable, depending upon
how the administrator has configured profiles.)
In Windows NT 4.0, administrators have the option of generating a network
Default User profile that, if present, will be used before the local Default User
profile is used. With the original retail release of Windows NT 4.0, workstations
downloaded this network Default User profile and the most recent NTconfig.pol
file, and cached them in the local Default User (Network) and Policy folders,
respectively. Then, instead of automatically downloading these from the server
whenever they were needed, the logon process compared the time/date/size
stamps of the two versions, and if they were the same, used the cached ver-
sions without performing another download. With Windows NT 4.0 Service
Pack 2, however, the System Policy file, NTconfig.pol, is downloaded during
each logon. (The profile functionality remains unchanged—the profile is
downloaded only if the local copy is out of date.)
Profile Names and Storage in the Registry
Windows NT 4.0 records which profile should be used by which user by plac-
ing registry keys for the user’s security ID (SID) in the registry in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Pr
ofileList
Each user who has logged on to the local machine will have a SID recorded
here in a subkey, with a value that contains the path to that user’s local profile,
ProfileImagePath. Should multiple users with the same account name log on to
the network, separate distinct profiles are created for each. For example, if
