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User Profile Storage

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The location of the profile directories for all users is stored in the following registry key. The same key is used for both the RAM-based registry and the hive-based registry. The location is the root folder under which there are individual user profile directories.

With the RAM-based registry, the registry value must contain the OEM specified full path to a user's profile directory, such as <root folder>\Documents and Settings\.

With the hive-based registry, the registry value contains only the path excluding the root folder, such as \Documents and Settings\. During the Filesys.exe boot process, the path specified by the OEM is appended to the file system root folder that registers containing the registry. In other words, the user profile directories must be stored on the same file system as the system hive, as shown in the following registry key.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\init\BootVars]
    "PROFILEDIR"="<your location>"

Applications can use SHGetSpecialFolderPath and specify the CSIDL_PROFILE CSIDL value to get the location of the current user's directory.

See Also

User Profiles | User Profile Setup | User Management

Last updated on Wednesday, April 13, 2005

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