A user profile stored locally on a computer running Microsoft Windows NT. A local profile is created for a user the first time the user successfully logs on to his or her computer. If the user does not have a preconfigured roaming user profile at the time of the first logon, Windows NT copies the default user profile to the new local user profile folder.
Local profiles are created for all users who interactively log on to computers running Windows NT so that they can access their own personal settings on that machine. Each user who logs on to a machine thus has his or her own local profile stored on the machine. Local profiles are stored in the folder %SystemRoot%\Profiles.
Each user’s profile is stored in a subfolder that is named after the username of the user and contains the user’s personal settings. The personal settings include both the appearance of the desktop and Start menu and the user’s network connections (such as mapped drives). Even if users have a roaming profile that allows them to log on from any machine in the network and obtain their personal settings, each machine also stores a local copy of their profiles in case the network is down when they try to log on.
Graphic L-13. Local user profile.
Windows 2000, Windows 95, and Windows 98 also support local user profiles. In Windows 2000, local user profiles are stored in the Documents and Settings folder.