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| Delete old user profiles to recover disk space |
| Each Windows 2000 user has a local profile unless his or her profile has been redirected to a |
| network server by an application of group policies. Roaming users have their profiles copied across |
| the network to the local computer during logon. Regardless of the profile type, a user profile |
| contains the user's desktop folder, My Documents folder, and other folders that make up the user's |
| working and desktop environment. |
| A user profile can become quite large, particularly if the user stores a lot of large documents, |
| downloaded files, or has a local message store with numerous attachments or old messages. There |
| is no limit on the size of a profile (unless you apply disk quotas), so a profile can grow to several |
| You can delete the user profile for a roaming user with a quick registry change. Open the Registry |
| Editor and then open the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows |
| NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. If the value DeleteRoamingCache isn't present, create the value, |
| and set it to 1. You can change this value to 0 later if you don't want cached roaming profiles |
| You need to use a different method to delete local profiles for nonroaming users. Before you do so, |
| make sure the user is no longer using the computer and no longer needs his or her documents and |
| other files stored in the profile. You can choose between two methods for deleting the profiles once |
| you decide it's safe to delete them. On the local computer, right-click My Computer and choose |
| Properties to open the System property sheet. Click the User Profiles tab, select the profile to |
| delete, and click Delete. |
| If you need to delete user profiles on a remote computer or prefer a console-based solution for the |
| local computer, you can use the Delprof tool included with the Windows 2000 Resource Kit. Delprof |
| lets you specify the computer on which it should delete the profile, so you don't need a Telnet or |
| other remote connection to the remote computer--you can accomplish the profile deletion across |
| Reminder: Editing the registry can be risky, so be sure you have a verified backup before making |
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