Are custom Sharepoint Security Groups saved with a Sharepoint site temaplate

Question

When a save a Sharepoint site that contains custom security groups as an stp file, does that stp file retain the groups?

Answer 1

Can someone validate this:

I think this makes sense that the Sharepoint groups are not exported with the sts file.

The sts file represents a Site. The Sharepoint groups are scoped at the Site Collection level. Creating other sites within a Site Collection allows you to share the same security groups across the site collection.

Answer 2

They will be include in the stp file, but i'm pretty sure they'll be broken if deployed to another site collection.

If you stay inside the same collection they'll continue to work. Security information is persisted in an stp.

P.S. I will vote to close this question, since it belongs on superuser.