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Roaming profiles do not delete

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12 replies

by robcoxon 1 view

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I have all the appropriate settings in Active Directory set to delete the roaming profiles but sometimes they do not get deleted. I also get an error when I try to delete the profile directly, and have to reboot the computer in order to successfully delete the profile. It appears that a file within the profile is being used which disallows the profile from being deleted. Any suggestions? I am using Windows 2003 Server with XP Pro workstations that are updated with the latest sp's etc.

12 replies

by will962

As to deleting the profile directly, we have a similar setup. In fact, it was my profile I wanted to delete. I was logged in as desktop admin and wanted to blow away my domain admin profile. I got the error message you did. I checked the permissions and removed everybody except desktop admin. If it was not there, I went into advanced and added it. I also changed the owner to the desktop admin and told the system to replace the permissions on all files and folders inside the main folder.

Once that was accomplished. I was able to delete it without any further issues.

As to roaming profiles not being deleted, I have found it is usually because the machine was not properly shut down.

by robcoxon

Thanks for the info but I need to know how to stop this from happening. It is not because of improper shutdown.

by robcoxon

I updated the computer with UPHClean but this still did not solve the issue. The error I get when I try to delete the profile, after logging off and back on, is "Cannot delete index.dat: It is being used by another person or program." This is not the profile that was created when I logged back on.

by monice

Is your GPO applied to an OU that contains the User accounts or the Computer accounts? It should be on the OU that contains the computer you want profile to be deleted from.

by robcoxon

Added a computer into the OU that contained the policy but unfortunately did not solve problem. Thanks for the suggestion.

by lee.killner

I've seen a similar issue. The index.dat file was found in 'Local Settings\Temporary Internet Folder'. I reduced the size of the temporary internet folder to stop it from storing the file.

by robcoxon

The index.dat file is very small. Less than one MB. With this scenario you would have to set the size to zero which isn't practical. Sorry for the extremely long delay in answering. I still haven't solved this problem.

by robcoxon

The index.dat file is very small. Less than one MB. With this scenario you would have to set the size to zero which isn't practical. Sorry for the extremely long delay in answering. I still haven't solved this problem.

by ut steve b

I found that the problem was with our user logon script and how it was running.
When the logon script was set to run in our group policy we would have problems. I changed it so that the users logon scripts ran by setting it in the individual properties of the user and the problem stopped.
I found out that when running logon scripts via GPO it ran in the background hidden. Perhaps you need this... but we didn't. All the local roaming profiles are deleting properly now.

by robcoxon

I removed the logon script, which was only used to map drives, and placed it in the individual properties of the user in Actice Directory but it didn't work. I continue to have profiles that don't delete completely.

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