Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 User Manual

Page 30

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22 Microsoft Windows NT Server White Paper

button. This deletes the User Profile on the local machine, but it does not de-

lete the associated User Account. Note that sometimes the phrase “Account

Deleted” is present in the list of profiles. These are accounts that were deleted

from the User Account Database, but whose profiles still exist on the local

computer.

If you need to delete profiles on remote computers, the Delprof.exe utility

available in the Windows NT Server Resource Kit, version 4.0, provides this

functionality. Windows NT 4.0 User Profiles can grow quite large and can take

up considerable disk space, particularly if several people are using one com-

puter. With Delprof.exe, you can reclaim disk space by removing profiles that

are no longer needed. This utility deletes User Profiles on computers running

Windows NT, and it can be used on a local or remote computer running

Windows NT 4.0 or earlier. However, because Delprof.exe is Unicode-based, it

cannot run on Windows 95.

NOTE: Delprof.exe will delete everything contained in a user's profile, including settings, colors, and user
documents. Please be aware of any user documents that may be deleted before using this tool.

The syntax of Delprof.exe is as follows:

delprof [/q] [/i] [/p] [/c:\\computername] [/d:days] [/?]

Where:

/q

Runs Delprof.exe in quiet mode, with no confirma-

tion for each profile to be deleted.

/I

Indicates that Delprof.exe should ignore errors and

continue deleting.

/p

Prompts for confirmation before deleting each pro-

file.

/c:\\computername

Specifies a remote computer name on which to run

Delprof.exe.

/d:days

Specifies the number of days of inactivity (days is

an integer). Profiles with longer inactivity will be

deleted.

/?

Displays command-line syntax.

See the Windows NT Server Resource Kit for more information.

It is important to note that if a user is logged on locally to a machine and

then attempts to delete his or her own profile, a message will appear stating

that the profile is currently in use and cannot be deleted. The user must log off,

log back on using a different account with administrator privileges, and delete

the profile. In addition, if a service is running for a particular user account, the

same message may appear. If this happens, stop the service and then delete

the profile.

Changing the Profile Type from Roaming to Local

With the User Profiles Change Type feature, a user can control which copy of

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