Hkey_Users contains the .Default subkey plus all previously loaded user profiles for users who have logged on. The information in the .Default subkey is used to create the user profile for a user who logs on without a personal user profile. The .Default subkey contains keys for AppEvents, Control Panel, Keyboard layouts, Network, RunMRU, and Software, among others.
Hkey_Current_User contains the database with the user profile of the user who is currently logged on. A user profile ensures that the user interface and operation of Windows 95 will be the same on any computer where that user logs on, if that person's profile is available at that computer. For details about managing user profiles, see Chapter 15, "User Profiles and System Policies."
Hkey_Current_User contains all the information necessary to set up a particular user environment on the computer, such as application preferences, screen colors, and security access permissions. Many of these settings are the same kind of information that was stored in WIN.INI under Windows 3.x. Hkey_Current_User includes several subkeys, some of which are described in the following table.
Subkey | Contents |
AppEvents | Subkeys containing the path and filename of the system sound file that plays when specific system events occur |
Control Panel | Subkeys containing Control Panel settings, including information stored in WIN.INI and CONTROL.INI under Windows 3.x |
Keyboard layouts | A value entry defining the current active keyboard layout, which should be set by using the Keyboard option in Control Panel |
Network | Subkeys describing persistent and recent network connections |
RunMRU | Subkeys listing the most recently used applications |
Software | Subkeys describing the current user's software settings, using the same structure as Hkey_Local_Machine\Software and containing application-specific information stored in WIN.INI or private initialization files under Windows 3.x |
StreamMRU | Subkeys for the most recently used documents |
Whenever similar data exists in Hkey_Local_Machine and Hkey_Current_User, the data in Hkey_Current_User takes precedence. For example, settings for applications and the desktop defined by the current user take precedence over default settings.