Local Service running in WinXP (What and why?)

[Guest]

Hi,

In Windows Explorer, the My Documents shortcut that is listed in the left
pane now goes to:

C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService\My Documents

I've never had a Local Sevice folder before. What is it and why is it there?
This shortcut always took me to my actual "My Documents" folder before and
now it's going to the Local Service whatever that is. I just noticed the
change today.

Thanks for any help you can give.
Mark

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Documents and Settings\LocalService is a Hidden folder.

Default Local Disk Folders

Folder Name: Documents and Settings
Contents: Account information for each user who is granted access on the
computer. Each user account is represented by a subfolder assigned the
user name. Folders under each user account folder include My Documents,
Desktop, and Start Menu.

These include:

Documents and Settings\Administrator
Documents and Settings\All Users
Documents and Settings\Default User
Documents and Settings\LocalService
Documents and Settings\NetworkService
Documents and Settings\You

Some of the above are Hidden folders.
These are System folders and shouldn't be deleted.

Administrator is for the Administrator account.

All Users is used for many things. Your Desktop and Start Menu, for
example, display what is in All Users *and* what is in your Desktop and
Start Menu folders.

Default User is used when creating new accounts.

I am not really sure what LocalService & NetworkService are for, but...

LocalService is the NT Authority\Local Service user account, the Windows XP
System account.

Obviously, NetworkService has something to do with networks, the
NetworkService account.

The LocalService and NetworkService accounts perform things like synchronize
the time, etc.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In