what exactly is Ntuser?

what exactly is ntuser...it popped up out of nowhere about 3 days ago..and its kind of annoyin me..from what i heard is that it is a very important file for your computer..my question is why would it pop up in my user profile randomly...i got no rights to move it or rename it...even as an admin acc, its now on both my comps...

NTUser.dat is the file containing the Hkey_Current_User hive of the Registry and contains all your user settings, desktop customizations, etc. Consequently Windows will hold the file open all the time you're logged in. If you fool with it it will go BANG!

heh like your enthusiastic answer...anyways..why would it be where it is now? it was never there before..maybe hidden somewhere..? oh well thanks

Yes it's usually hidden. Did you change the View settings to show hidden or system files? If it gets on your nerves press Alt in Explorer, Tools, Folder Options, View, Do Not Show Hidden Files And Folders and it should disappear quick-smart

actually it's on do not show hidden files...but its still there...

OK I did a search from the root using dir ntuser.dat /s and got File Not Found, which is what you would expect. I then did dir ntuser.dat /s /ash (search for files with the Hidden and System attributes set) and found it it in my profile directory, which is where it should be and where your version is. If you have not set Explorer to show hidden files, which you obviously haven't, it should be invisible. You could try and disappear it with attrib +h as a last resort...

Sorry that seems a bit offhand: right-click your user folder with Shift held down and the context menu will contain the extra item Open Command Window Here. When you have the console up, use the command Attrib +h NTUser.dat which should make the offending file disappear.

yay it worked!

AvatarOfTheShip said:

Sorry that seems a bit offhand: right-click your user folder with Shift held down and the context menu will contain the extra item Open Command Window Here. When you have the console up, use the command Attrib +h NTUser.dat which should make the offending file disappear.

Click to expand...

I'm having the same problem. In my folder options i have Do not show hidden files and folders checked and Hide important system files check but the NTUsers.dat file is still apearing... I tried your solution with the attrib +h NTUser.dat but it says file not found any help would be great thanks~

The only other thing that springs to mind is starting the prompt as Administrator (click on the orb, type cmd, then pess Ctrl-Shift-Enter) and then navigate to the relevant folder and do the attrib +h thing

I have ran into this problem myself and I notice you have nero on your computer. Nero Showtime takes over .dat files and makes them a video cd movie file. I have found a way to fix this by using the registry editor. Basically, you have to return the .dat files back to there original state. This is a lot harder in Vista, since you can no longer unassociate files like in XP. Also, you have to change the NTUSER file back to a hidden state because nero changed that also. If you have any questions on how I fixed this problem, I will post the procedure that I used. Basically you have to make three registry edits to fix this problem. I have not been able to find a solution on the web to fix this delema, so I actually looked at new computers in a box store and checked out there default prestine condition. That is how I learned how nero showtime had taken over these .dat files and NTUSER is one of them. thanks. H