User Profile Hives

Each time a new user logs on to a computer, a new hive is created for that user with a separate file for the user profile. This is called the user profile hive. A user's hive contains specific registry information pertaining to the user's application settings, desktop, environment, network connections, and printers. User profile hives are located under the HKEY_USERS key.

Under Windows NT/Windows 2000, the supporting file for the user profile hive for a particular user is located in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\SID\ProfileImagePath, and is named Ntuser.dat. The value of ProfileImagePath is a binary representation of the directory name of the user's profile, which includes the user's name. Use the Registry Editor to display this binary value as a string.