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Hi if I am logged in as admin, how can I see the registry settings for all the regular (limited account) users on the machine?
For example if there are settings stored in the current user settings for user A (limited account) which only apply to that user, how can I see what they are when I am logged in as Admin?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256986
says that the files should be stored at:
"The supporting files for HKEY_CURRENT_USER are in the %SystemRoot%\Profiles\Username folder"
On my system that is c:windows\profiles\username, although my windows (xp home) does not have a c:\windows\profiles folder? In the folder options I have "display contents of system files", "show hidden files and folders" selected and "hide protected operating system files" unselected, and I cannot find a profiles folder anywhere on my machine (logged in with admin rights)?
Even if you dig out a user's persisted USER hive you can't do much with it directly. They can be stored in different formats on different Windows versions too.
You need to load a user's profile, then they're found under the HKU hive:
This isn't a normal thing to be tinkering with. Since there might be hundreds of users defined it doesn't make sense for Windows to keep everyone's USER hive loaded whenever the OS is running.Quote:
Abbreviated HKU, HKEY_USERS contains subkeys corresponding to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER keys for each user profile actively loaded on the machine, though user hives are usually only loaded for currently logged-in users.
By now this must have been answered for you on the other forum sites you've cross-posted this question to, but look at LoadUserProfile Function.