Default User Archives • Helge Klein

Error Message Explained: User Profile Service Failed the Logon

This article is part of Helge’s Profile Toolkit, a set of posts explaining the knowledge and tools required to tame Windows user profiles. Many errors related to user profiles result in the user getting a temporary profile instead of the regular local or roaming profile. I have written about possible causes for that here. In […]

Customizing the Default Profile

This article is part of Helge’s Profile Toolkit, a set of posts explaining the knowledge and tools required to tame Windows user profiles. Administrators frequently have the requirement to adapt newly created user profiles to corporate standards. This is typically done by modifying the default profile, the profile Windows uses as a template when creating […]

Another IT Legend

Some time ago I wrote about a misconception so common that it might pass as an IT legend – the confusion of HKU\.Default with the default user’s registry hive. Recently I came across another interesting misapprehension. As you know, the profiles base directory (usually C:\Documents and Settings) contains not only one special sub-folder, Default User, […]

Why is (Almost) Everybody Wrong About HKU\.Default?

Most technical folks have stumbled across the registry hive HKEY_USERS\.Default at some point. Many of them think they know what it is used for. Interestingly, most who do are wrong. The misconception about what HKU\.Default is used for dates back to the good old days when Windows NT 4.0 was still considered “new technology”. This […]

Tag: Default User

Error Message Explained: User Profile Service Failed the Logon

Customizing the Default Profile

Another IT Legend

Why is (Almost) Everybody Wrong About HKU\.Default?