Deleting User Profiles

[83dons]

Hi I am looking to properly delete a user profile in Windows 7. We login using active directory I think and our desktop etc follows us about to each PC we are on. In XP it was easy you just deleted the user profile and then logged back in and a new one would be created. In Windows 7 you can delete the folder in C:\Users but there are also registry entries to delete. Do I just need to do a search and delete any folders with the SID that contains any reference to the network username? On the firswt machine I am looking at the only reference appears within the Wow6432Node whatever that is?! Should I just delete the SID folders for each user in here? Within that node it is under Altiris > eXpress > Inventory > SID cache they appear in. On my own machine the username is also references in other folders such as Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > GroupPolicy or WIndowsNT > CurrentVersion > ProfileList. Should I just remove the long name SID folder wherever I find it so it can be recreated at startup when that person tries to login again?

 

[ex_bubblehead]

The proper way to do it is via System Properties.

Control Panel> System> Advanced system settings> Advanced > User Profiles

Deleting in this manner will remove the profile folder as well as the relevant (and correct) registry entries.

Now, on occasion you will get a "could not remove folder" error and the profile folder will still remain (though empty). You can manually remove the folder through explorer without issue if this happens.

 

[coreydwillis2]

The proper way to do it is via System Properties.

Control Panel> System> Advanced system settings> Advanced > User Profiles

Deleting in this manner will remove the profile folder as well as the relevant (and correct) registry entries.

Now, on occasion you will get a "could not remove folder" error and the profile folder will still remain (though empty). You can manually remove the folder through explorer without issue if this happens.

I tracked this thread because I was curious if I was just crazy or if it made more sense to use the built-in removal options. Thanks. 🙂