# Profiles

A profile is a collection of default settings and restrictions that can be applied to either individual users or groups of users.

The KDE desktop environment as well as all TDE applications use a specific directory structure to lookup configuration settings and various other information. KDE knows about several locations for these directory structures. All the information and configuration settings found in the various locations are combined before they are used. Lock down features control whether settings in the user's home folder ($TDEHOME or ~/.trinity) are taken into account or not.

A profile consists of a standard KDE directory structure in a custom location with settings and information chosen by you.

&kiosktool; lets you chose in which location a profile should be stored. Information about available profiles is stored in the file &etc_tderc;.

It is recommended to store all profiles under a single directory. In this case the &etc_tderc; file only needs to contain a reference to this single directory and KDE and &kiosktool; will automatically pick up all profiles stored under this directory. See the settings chapter for more information.