Too many user accounts

[gtoman]

Under explorer/documents and settings I have directories
called "default user", "default user.windows", " all
users", "all users.windows". They all contain "start
menu" etc but most are empty. Do I need these? The
machine came with xp installed so I didnt set them up. I
am the only person to use the machine so are all the
required?

Many thanks

 

[M. Rajesh]

Hi,

That is the system account and it is best to leave it as
it is. do not do anything with that account.

regards
M. Rajesh
www.winxpsolution.com

 

[dave]

XP is a system that allows many users onto it. You will
have an account with a start menu for yourself and all
other users.
As well as these accounts, there are two system accounts,
default and all users.

The default account is used when a new account is created.
All of the stuff from that directory is copied into the
newly created account. So you need this one.

The All Users account is an area that holds things once
that all users have access to. For instance, If you
installed Microsoft Office, it would be on your hard disk
and available to all users. (generally) The menu items for
Office are therefor put into the All Users Start Menu.
That way every one sees them. If they were just put into
your start directory (an option) then no other user would
see the menu items.


I believe the .windows versions are created when the
system is upgraded. I had this on my computer when I
upgraded from 98.

As long as they are not huge I'd just leave them alone. If
you need to delete them, you should be ok. No promises
though...


Dave

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Yes they are all required. Windows XP is based on Windows 2000, which was
based on Windows NT. Since Windows NT was a multi-user operating system and
each user can have their own Windows configuration, the system needed to be
able to store the configurations.

There are several "default" users which Windows XP creates. The ones I know
about are:

default user --- The general user account, which "seems" the be "linked" to
the current logged in user account.
all users --- This is where there desktop configuration (desktop icons
and start menu) settings are store. These
are the same "base" for all defined users on this
PC.

Y.

 

[GSV Three Minds in a Can]

Yes they are all required. Windows XP is based on Windows 2000, which was
based on Windows NT. Since Windows NT was a multi-user operating system and
each user can have their own Windows configuration, the system needed to be
able to store the configurations.

There are several "default" users which Windows XP creates. The ones I know
about are:

default user --- The general user account, which "seems" the be "linked" to
the current logged in user account.

'default user' is used as a 'template'; whenever a new user account is
generated it start from 'default user' values.

all users --- This is where there desktop configuration (desktop icons
and start menu) settings are store. These
are the same "base" for all defined users on this

There is only one valid version of 'default user' and 'all users', for
any one installation of XP. Other copies which have 'windows, .<machine
name>, .000, etc appended to them get created if you re-install(ed) XP,
or if XP is unable to load the original profile for some reason, or if
you have some other NT OS running on the same partition (horrible idea).

You can use 'set' command in a CMD window to find out where =your=
%userprofile% setting points, but it's a bit more difficult to figure
out which of the 'default user' or 'all users' profiles are real and
which are obsolete. If you try to open 'all users\ntuser.dat' and it is
locked, then it's a pretty good bet that that is the profile currently
in use for 'all users'.