Cleaning up "Documents & Settings"

[Lee]

Thanks for the advice. I need to go a little deeper,
though.

There is only one user on this machine, me (login
name "L735"). But it looks like there are folders for
other users, namely:

Administrator
All Users
All Users.Windows
Default User
Default User.Windows
L735.MBBA ["MBBA" is the name of my computer]
LocalService
Local Service.NT AUTHORITY
Network Service
Network Service.NT AUTHORITY

Do I need all of these? Looks like some might have been
created inadvertently.

Thanks again.

 

[Winux P]

Yes Lee, you do need to go just abit deeper. The base folders (and their
respective sub folders) which should be kept are;

Administrator
All Users
Default User
Local Service
Network Service

Then come all your uses folders, i.e 'L735'.
And sub folders you and any apps may create.

Sometimes when you attempt to re-create a special folder or redirect it (not
saying you did), you may end up with folders looking like,

All Users.Windows
Default User.Windows
L735.COMPUTER NAME
Local Service.NT AUTHORITY
Network Service.NT AUTHORITY

Which basically mimic the orginal set above. One way to determine which
folders the system (and you) are using is to look through the registry and
look for e.g, '\Documents and Settings\Network Service' and see whether the
reg keys, values, data... show up as 'Network Service.NT AUTHORITY' or just
'Network Service'. You can adjust the reg keys, values and data to point
the the desired folders and reboot. If successful, Windows will then allow
you to remove the second set of special folders. I speak from experience,
but hold out to see if an easier and better way of doing as such is posted,
it's not just editing your registry, but there are generally alot of changes
to make in it, and though in my case it all worked, my fingers were crossed
all the way through it.

HTH even slightly....

Winux P

 

[Lee]

-----Original Message-----
One way to determine which
folders the system (and you) are using is to look through the registry and
look for e.g, '\Documents and Settings\Network Service' and see whether the
reg keys, values, data... show up as 'Network Service.NT AUTHORITY' or just
'Network Service'. You can adjust the reg keys, values and data to point
the the desired folders and reboot. If successful, Windows will then allow
you to remove the second set of special folders.

Winux P:

That's the kind of detail I was looking for, and I
appreciate it. If I understand you correctly, it's likely
that there are registry values pointing to *both* the
originals and the mimicked folders, and that I should pick
one or the other and align all the registry values
appropriately. Also sounds like Windows will not let me
delete a folder to which registry values still point.
Correct?

Still a frightening proposition...

 

[Winux P]

Hello Lee,

From my experience, the registry keys, data and/or values should only point
to only one of the folder sets. Also something like 'Network Service.NT
AUTHORITY' came after 'Network Service'. With for the 'Network Service'
and the 'Network Service.NT AUTHORITY' for example, make sure you can view
all files and folders (system and hidden) in win explorer. In both these
similar folders you will see a file called 'NTUSER.DAT', try to make a copy
of this file from both the folders and attempt to paste it (in the same
folder). The folder(s) the system is using will deny the paste operation,
it's only true for this folder and with the L735.COMPUTER NAME, L735
folders. The other folder should paste 'Copy of NTUSER.DAT', the system is
not using this one.

To try it out, boot up regedit (and first back it up or make a restore
point,...), find all occurrences of 'Documents and Settings\NetworkService'.
My suspicion is the system is using 'Network Service.NT AUTHORITY', if this
is what you want to use so be it, leave the registry and delete the other
folder, if you want to use 'Network Service', then for each occurrence of
'Network Service.NT AUTHORITY' in the registry, delete the '.NT AUTHORITY'
part, and try not to miss an instance of it. Reboot, try the copy operation
above again if 'Documents and Settings\NetworkService' denies the paste
operation, then delete 'Network Service.NT AUTHORITY'. Like wise with your
user folder, and don't delete this folder unless you know your data is
recently backed up.

Generally do a registry search on all the special folders mentioned and do
not changed any settings at the root of the 'Documents and Settings'
folder, rather search for and make sure the 'Match whole string only' option
is not checked,

'Documents and Settings\Network Service'
'Documents and Settings\L735'.....etc

Also keep in mind, and this is from my experience, you may need to do the
same folder more than once, i.e. go through the registry to reset keys,
values and data. For some reason I had to do 'Network Service.NT AUTHORITY'
twice before it finally pointed back to 'Network Service'. One more thing
the 'L735' is an administrator right? You will need to be.

HTH

Winux P

 

[Lee]

HTH:

Before I got your reply, I tried something based on a clue
I got from your previous suggestion: I renamed each of the
top-level folders in Documents & Settings. From something
you said, I assumed XP wouldn't let me do that for any
folder that was in use, which was how I figured I could
identify the "live" ones.

As it turned out, I could rename all but these four:

- AllUsers.WINDOWS
- L735.[computer name]
- LocalService.NT AUTHORITY
- NetworkService.NT AUTHORITY

Before doing this, I created a Restore Point as well as an
extra user name, just in case, because I know this doesn't
foot with some of the things you said (e.g., to retain
some of the folders I renamed.) However, I've now been
working on the machine for several hours, have re-booted
three or four times, and have seen no ill-effects of any
kind.

I'm assuming that, when I renamed those other folders, no
registry keys were automatically re-pointed to reflect the
name change, so that at some time in the future I can
delete the renamed folders.

My next goal is to figure out what items in the four
folders above can be safely deleted other than the obvious
ones like temporary Internet files.

Incidentally, I think the extra folders stemmed from a
complete re-installation of Windows I had to do when the
whole OS went to hell a while back. I reinstalled into a
folder named WindowsX rather than Windows. (I fudged the
above folder names so as not to confuse matters
unnecessarily: AllUsers.WINDOWS is actually
AllUsers.WINDOWSX)

Thanks very much again for your assistance, HTH.