How can I enable user environment debugging in Windows 2000 and later?

A. To debug the user environment settings, you can create a log file (\%systemroot%\debug\usermode\userenv.log) with different levels of information concerning your log on, log off, and other user environment activity. This log file can help you debug problems related to policy application and profile application and saving. For example, I recently used userenv.log to help ascertain why client machines weren't copying user profiles to the roaming profile location--I was able to determine that the user registry hive was locked and couldn't be copied.

To set the logging level associated with the userenv.log file, perform the following steps:

1. Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
2. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon registry subkey.
3. From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value.
4. Enter the name UserEnvDebugLevel, then press Enter.
5. Double-click the new value, set it to one of the values listed in the table below, then click OK.

   Registry Entry          Value
   ==============          ========
   No logging              00000000 
   Normal logging          00000001 
   Verbose logging         00000002 
   Output to logfile       00010000 
   Debugger output         00020000 

6. Restart the computer for the changes to take effect.

You can combine the values from the table in Step 5 (e.g., for verbose output to logfile, use value 00010002).

End of Article