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How to best clean a machine of old profiles?

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There is a machine that has gone through several users. Space is getting low, speed is lagging on this machine. The profiles of old users are still in the Documents and Settings folder. Getting rid of the old user profiles will free up a lot of space. How should I go about doing that? I have gotten the OK from management.

The machine is XP Pro SP3. Right now I have isolated it from the rest of the network.

Thanks

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Clarifications

In reply to How to best clean a machine of old profiles?

Clarifications

With the User Accounts control panel applet.

In reply to How to best clean a machine of old profiles?

It’s the only way to fly. 🙂

In this particular case

In reply to How to best clean a machine of old profiles?

I would suggest a wipe and reload.

But if all you want is to free up space by deleting the user profiles the above answer is your only other solution. However it’s not going to Ungunk the Registry and other then freeing up HDD Space it’s not going to improve performance substantially.

Col

It’ll ungunk the user hives, at least.

In reply to How to best clean a machine of old profiles?

(I’ve fallen in love with “Ungunk”.) (And now the spelling check dictionary loves it, too.)

A rigorous and well-made registry cleaner, along with a somewhat knowledgeable user could help a bit more, though. And if you know how to eyeball the registry, even better. But there’s nothing like nuke and pave for a fresh start.

[Author]

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