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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