Understanding your profile and managing it efficiently

Understanding your profile and managing it efficiently

Document number: 69088

When you log onto your computer your user name is matched with a profile on the computer. In Windows 2000 your profile is found under c:/Documents and Settings/ username. Also in the c:/Documents and Settings/ is an All Users profile, an Administrator profile and (usually) a Default User profile. Those profiles dictate what shows up in your "Programs" menu, what your background and wall paper look like, what screen saver you have, what Favorites you will see listed, what appears on your desktop and more.

Managing your profile is important to preventing wasting space, time and efficiency. It is important to recognize both the benefits and shortcomings of relying on your profile in your work habits.

One of the most critical areas to manage is your desktop.Your Windows 2000 desktop is customizable in many ways. How the desktop looks and what shows on it when you log in is dependent upon those profiles. Many people find it a convenience to store frequently used documents on their desktop. A downside of this practice is that such documents will be stored only in your individual profile. A document placed on the desktop is at risk if your profile becomes corrupt. Because of the number of functions involving your profile it is much more likely to become corrupt than your documents folder. Files in your profile are not backed up by default so you will not be able to restore them. The only part of your profile backed up is your favorites. No other part of the desktop is backed up. See Eureka! document 15293 — Files backed by default in Connected TLM (Connected Backup).

A better practice is to store the document itself in a folder and then put a short cut to the document on the desktop. For information on how to create a short cut see Eureka! document 69021 — How to create a new shortcut on the desktop. If you have documents on the desktop you can drag them to a more appropriate folder, then create the shortcut.