How does Mozilla determine where the profile resides?

There is a single file called registry.dat that tells Mozilla where to find its profile. This file is located in the user's Windows profile directory on the C: drive.

For Windows 2000/XP users, the registry.dat file is located in the c:\Documents and Settings\userid\Application Data\Mozilla.

In Windows NT, the registry.dat file is located in the c:\Winnt\Profiles\userid\Application Data\mozilla directory.

If this file is missing or becomes corrupt, Mozilla will launch the Profile Manager when the program starts to prompt you to create a new profile directory. If you use this to create a new profile, the contents of your old profile are not copied over automatically - you'll need to locate the old profile and copy its contents over to the new directory.

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