Methods of editing service profile files

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Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows Server 2003 with SP2

Methods of editing service profile files

The CMAK wizard provides the ability to customize the most frequently used elements of a service profile. However, you might want to customize elements that you cannot configure in the wizard. By adding or editing keys and values to the individual files that make up a service profile, you can provide even higher levels of customization to meet the needs of the most advanced environments.

Service profile file types

Service profiles include files of the following types:

  • Service provider (.cms) files. The .cms files specify the configuration of the phone book and most of the other functions of your service profiles. Most advanced customization for a service profile is done by editing the .cms file for a particular service profile.

  • Connection profile (.cmp) files. The .cmp files contain information specified by the user. Because users can overwrite any changes you make to this file, any changes you make to this file will be available only the first time the service profile is used. Editing this file allows you to provide a first-time-only population of user information. For example, you can fill in the user name, the password, and the phone number fields for the first user to install and open your service profile.

  • Information (.inf) files. The .inf files specify installation information for your service profiles. Although you can edit some setup and uninstall information in an .inf file, you should test the installation after you make any changes. You cannot edit information files from the Advanced Customization pane of the CMAK wizard. To edit .inf files, you must use a plain-text editor.

  • Connection profile (.sed) files. The .sed files contain the instructions for building a self-extracting executable (.exe) file for your service profiles. You should never edit any .sed file.

Important

  • You should not edit these files without a basic understanding of system configuration files. Troubleshooting changes to service-profile files is difficult, so you should be careful if you modify them. Read section and key descriptions carefully. It is advisable to make a backup of these files before you edit them.

Editing files

You can edit specific files used to build the service profile in one of two ways:

  • Select the Advanced customization check box in the Ready to Build the Service Profile pane of the CMAK wizard. If you do this and then click Next, the Advanced Customization pane appears.

  • Edit files after profile creation with any plain-text editor, such as Notepad.

You can use the Advanced customization pane to edit the .cms and .cmp files when you build a service profile. You can select or type in section names, keys, and values. You must click Apply after you specify each change. Some advantages of this method are that the changes you make are built directly into the service profile when you click Next and that you can make many changes quickly. However, if you mistype a section name or a key name and click Apply, you cannot edit or delete that section or key name directly. You can delete a key only by setting the value to blank, and you can delete a section only by setting one of the keys in it to blank.

Important

  • If you set the value of a single key to blank in the Advanced Customization pane, you delete that key and all other keys in that section, as well as the section itself.

  • Any user can modify the .cms and .cmp files of a service profile that is installed on a computer running Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition. Users who install profiles for individual use on computers that are running Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000 can modify .cms and .cmp files of the profiles they install. Only members of the Administrators or System Operators groups can modify .cms and .cmp files of profiles installed for All Users on computers that are running Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000. All members of the Administrators group on a local computer can modify the .cms and .cmp files of any service profile that is installed on that computer.

To customize a service profile after you have built it, you can edit any of the service profile files with any plain-text editor, such as Notepad. However, you must run the CMAK wizard again after editing the files in this way in order to incorporate your changes.

For more information, see Deciding what to customize, Uses for advanced customization, and ISP and Service Type keys.