SharePoint User Information List - findings

SharePoint stores the details of the users (like DisplayName, Account ID, picture, email etc.) added to the site in a hidden list - User Information list. This hidden list is accessible by the administrators only.

The URL to access this list is:

http://sitename/_catalogs/users/detail.aspx - Shows the detail view of only Users in the list.

http://sitename/_catalogs/users/simple.aspx - Shows the simple view of only Users in the List

http://sitename/_catalogs/users/allgroups.aspx - Shows all the groups without users available in Site.

The list can be accessed programmatically by the property SPWeb. SiteUserInfoList.  Say if we need to capture user’s hobbies or any other details, a new column can be created in the list and can be updated programmatically.

Note:

1       This list is not indexed by the crawler; hence users cannot be searched in the site. The people search in MOSS searches the User Profiles imported through SSP. Since there is no user profiles concept in WSS 3.0, out of the box, there is no people/user search option.