running on the local system, or loaded and mapped in all processes started in a user session when the user logs on the system. The HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (local machine-specific configuration data) and HKEY_CURRENT_USER (user-specific configuration data) nodes have a similar structure to each other; user applications typically look up their settings by first checking for them in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Vendor's name\Application's name\Version\Setting name", and if the setting is not found, look instead in the same location under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key. However, the converse may apply for administrator-enforced policy settings where HKLM may take precedence over HKCU. The Windows Logo Program has specific requirements for where different types of user data may be stored, and that the concept of least privilege be followed so that administrator-level access is not required to use an application. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM) Abbreviated HKLM, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE stores settings that are specific to the local computer. The key located by HKLM is actually not stored on disk, but maintained in memory by the system kernel in order to map all the other subkeys. Applications cannot create any additional subkeys. On Windows NT, this key contains four subkeys, "SAM", "SECURITY", "SYSTEM", and "SOFTWARE", that are loaded at boot time within their respective files located in the %SystemRoot%\System32\config folder. A fifth subkey, "HARDWARE", is volatile and is created dynamically, and as such is not stored in a file (it exposes a view of all the currently detected Plug-and-Play devices). On Windows Vista and above, a sixth and seventh subkey, "COMPONENTS" and "BCD", are mapped in memory by the kernel on-demand and loaded from %SystemRoot%\system32\config\COMPONENTS or from boot configuration data, \boot\BCD on the system partition. The "HKLM\SAM" key usually appears as empty for most users (unless they are granted access by administrators of the local system or administrators of domains managing the local system). It is used to reference all "Security Accounts Manager" (SAM) databases for all domains into which the local system has been administratively authorized or configured (including the local domain of the running system, whose SAM database is stored in a subkey also named "SAM": other subkeys will be created as needed, one for each supplementary domain). Each SAM database contains all builtin accounts (mostly group aliases) and configured accounts (users, groups and their aliases, including guest accounts and administrator accounts) created and configured on the respective domain, for each account in that domain, it notably contains the user name which can