Exclude certain directories from roaming profiles in Windows NT - TechRepublic

Exclude certain directories from roaming profiles in Windows NT

While roaming profiles ensure that users can access their personal settings from multiple machines, they can easily grow in size, resulting in sluggish logons. Learn two ways you can control the size of roaming profiles in Windows NT.

Mar 23, 2005
We may earn from vendors via affiliate links or sponsorships. This might affect product placement on our site, but not the content of our reviews. See our Terms of Use for details.

Roaming profiles ensure that users can access their personal
settings no matter what machine they log on to. But these profiles can grow
over time and consequently make logons very slow.

However, you can use Windows NT’s ExcludeProfileDirs
registry setting to exclude certain directories from replication, which can
help control the size of user profiles. Follow these steps:

  1. Start
    the Registry Editor. (Go to Start | Run, and type regedt32.exe.)
  2. Navigate
    to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.
  3. From
    the Edit menu, select New | String Value.
  4. Enter ExcludeProfileDirs, and press
    [Enter].
  5. Double-click
    the new value, and enter the relevant areas to exclude, separating them by
    semicolons (for example, Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook;
    Temporary Internet Files; Personal).
  6. Close
    the Registry Editor, and restart the system.

You can also exclude certain directories from roaming
profiles by creating a system policy. Follow these steps:

  1. Start
    the System Policy Editor, and load the Common.adm and Winnt.adm templates.
  2. Create
    a new policy.
  3. Double-click
    Default User.
  4. Expand
    Windows NT User Profiles.
  5. Select
    Exclude Directories In Roaming Profile.
  6. In the
    data box, enter the names of the directories you want to exclude.

Note: Editing the
registry is risky, so be sure you have a verified backup before making any
changes.