SECURITY

The key HKLM\SECURITY contains Windows XP security data. You normally can't see the contents of this key, but you can give the Administrators group permission to read it so that you can examine it. The section "SAM," on the facing page, shows you how to do that. The SECURITY key contains the subkey SAM. It also contains the subkey Policies. This subkey defines local, non-registry-based policies for the computer. The key Policies\Accounts has one subkey for each SID in the local security database. Each SID contains four subkeys:

• ActSysAc. This subkey defines the SID's operating system access allowed.

• Privilgs. This subkey defines the SID's privileges.

• SecDesc. This subkey contains the SID's security descriptor.

• Sid. This subkey defines the groups to which the SID belongs.