Which registry hive contains info about a user's recently accessed files, typed URLs, and user-specific settings?

• A. NTUSER.DAT located in user's profile directory
• B. SAM
• C. SYSTEM
• D. SOFTWARE

Answer: (A)

The data about a specific user’s recently accessed files, typed URLs, and personal settings lives in the user’s registry hive, which is loaded as NTUSER.DAT when that user logs in. This per-user hive stores HKCU (HKEY_CURRENT_USER) information, meaning all the user’s own configuration and MRU (Most Recently Used) lists are kept there. For example, recently opened documents appear in paths like HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RecentDocs, and the sites the user typed URLs for can be found under HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs.

The other hives serve different purposes: SAM holds security account data (usernames, password hashes, and related security info), SYSTEM contains boot and hardware configuration, and SOFTWARE stores machine-wide software configuration and settings. Those do not contain the per-user MRU lists and typed URLs tied to an individual user in the same way NTUSER.DAT does.