• The public profile is different from other profiles because it is not a complete profile. It does not include an NTUSER.DAT file and consequently does not include any registry settings. The public profile is a series of folders. The content of these folders is merged into the profiles of other users when they log on. For example, shortcuts or files placed in the Public Desktop Folder are placed on the desktop of each user.


• The folders contained in the default profile are:
• Favorites: Favorites stored here are available to all users.
• Libraries: Libraries stored here do not appear in user prof les but are available to all users.
• Public Desktop: Files and shortcuts stored here appear on the Desktop of each user.
• Public Documents: Files stored here appear in the Documents library of each user.
• Public Downloads: Files stored here do not appear in prof les, but the files in it are available to all users.
• Public Music: Files stored here appear in the Music library of each user.
• Public Pictures: Files stored here appear in the Pictures library of each user.
• Public Recorded TV: This folder is used to store recorded television programs for personal video recorder (PVR) functionality. This folder does not appear in user prof les, but the files in it are available to all users.
• Public Videos: Files stored here appear in the Videos folder of each user.


• The advantage of these folders is that other users can save files to these locations from different user accounts on the same computer or from across the network.

Activity 6-6