Creating User Profiles Step By Step

User Profiles

User profile is used to save user’s settings & preferences & to provide a user with a default location or folder

to save documents & personal files. Profile can be at local computer or network location both. User profile can

also be changed by the user or locked by the administrator. Profiles can be redirected to a network share and

accessed by the user from any computer in the network.

There are three type of User Profile:

1. Local User Profile 

2. Roaming User profile 

3. Mandatory User Profile

Local user Profile is located in the in the “Documents & Settings” folder on the Local Computer. When a user

logs on to the local computer for the 1st time, a subfolder matching to their username is created under the

“Documents & Settings” folder which is located in Window’s drive (C drive). In this subfolder the users profile

& a hidden system file (netuser.dat) is also created.

When a user logs on to the computer, the ntuser.dat file is loaded, this contains the user’s preferences &

settings. Any changes to the user setting or preferences are saved back to the ntuser.dat file when the user

logs off the computer.

Roaming User Profile can be created when a users access more than one PC or move around the network to

ensure that the user will receive his or her user settings & preferences, no matter where they log on. This user

profile is created by the administrator in Active Directory by using profile tab in the user’s properties.

When a user logs on using Roaming Profile a local profile will remain on the local machine also if there is

unavailability of network then next time the user logs on from that PC, the locally cached profile will be

loaded. Changes to the local profile will not saved back to the Roaming profile

Note: when a user logs on user’s profile are taken form the network which creates a network traffic & long

logon time if user saves large files to their desktop or to their My Documents folder.

Steps to Create Roaming User Profile:

1. Create a share folder in any drive in any PC.

2. Open Active directory users & computers

3. Select user to create roaming profile & Go to its Properties

4. In User Properties click on profile tab.

5. Type Profile Path [\\IP of the share folder PC\Folder share name\%Username%]

Mandatory User Profile is used when administrator wants no changes to Users’ Settings & Preferences by any

user. This is a fixed profile of a user which can not be modified or changed, if still user makes changes to

his/her profile the all changes will be lost when the user logs off, the next time when user logs in again all

settings will be reset to mandatory user profile.

To make Mandatory user profile

Go to user profile – Right click on “ntuser.dat” file – Rename the file to ntuser.man

Note: The ntuser.dat file is a hidden system file by default. To see this go to folder option – view - uncheck “hide protected

operating system files”