The HKEY LOCAL MACHINESECURITY Key

The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY Key

The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY registry key contains information on the security subsystem on the local computer, including user rights and permissions, password policies, and local group membership. All of this information is specified using administrative utilities such as User Manager (Windows NT 4.0 Workstation), User Manager for Domains (Windows NT 4.0 Server), and User Management MMC snap-in (Windows 2000).

The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SECURITY\SAM key references the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM key; because of this, any modification introduced into one of these keys will immediately appear within the other one.