What is the Security Account Manager (SAM)?
Windows stores and manages the local user and group accounts in a database file called SecurityAccount Manager (SAM). It authenticates local user logons. On a domain controller, it simply stores the administrator account from the time it was a server, which serves as the Directory Services Restore Mode (DSRM) recovery account. The SAM database resides in the Windows registry.
(9 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)