Local User Profiles

[Guest]

I am trying to determine the best way to remove local profiles from over 1000
machines on a weekly basis. Right now we are having to manually visit these
machines or use remote management and slowly delete each profile.

I am looking for some help with writing a script which will use pc names
from a txt file, remotely delete the user profiles, with the exception of a
few specific ones.

I have looked at the tool available from Microsoft, except the user profile
deletion tool deletes all profiles and there are a few I would like to leave.

Any help or direction in writing a script to take care of this would be much
appreciated.

Thanks In Advance for your help

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I am trying to determine the best way to remove local profiles from
over 1000 machines on a weekly basis. Right now we are having to
manually visit these machines or use remote management and slowly
delete each profile.

I am looking for some help with writing a script which will use pc
names from a txt file, remotely delete the user profiles, with the
exception of a few specific ones.

I have looked at the tool available from Microsoft, except the user
profile deletion tool deletes all profiles and there are a few I
would like to leave.

Any help or direction in writing a script to take care of this
would be much appreciated.

Thanks In Advance for your help

Why are these profiles there? What are they needed for? Why can you not
clear them at each log off?

There's some details of why this becomes an issue that might help resolve
your problem.

If these profiles must stay on these machines after a user logs off for some
period of time for some reason - then pretty much - you will probably have
to resort to scripting.

 

[Guest]

Shenan,

Just to make sure I am not clouding this issue.

These are local profiles, not roaming. Unless I am missing something, is
there a way to automatically delete local profiles at logoff. (i realize
this does exist for roaming profiles)

Second these profiles do not need to stay on the machines. We have an
enormous amount of users logging onto and off of these machines every day.
The result is 100+ profiles on each machine by the end of one week.

If there is a way to clear them at logoff, please tell me... Although this
does not appear to be an option for local profiles.

Thanks again..

 

[Guest]

I would suggest Autoit as a possible scripting language for this kind of
task, of course the script itself will take some time and effort.

I'm just wondering how this would work-out anyway; if the profiles are not
roaming ones, then the users will lose their data and settings when the
profile is removed. They will also be faced with a loss of settings if they
change computer. Would it not be better to use a fixed profile in this case,
so the computer always behaves the same, and store data oin a server?

 

[Guest]

Anteaus,

I will look at Autoit, seems as though I have run across that before. I
just wish it would write the script! Anyways...

I realize to most people that they want their client to login and receive
the same desktop settings, however in our case due to the volume of clients
utilizing different machines, and the fact that most of these clients login
once or twice a day to a different machine, we do not really want to retain
their settings. We are using a common desktop environment, in which all the
applications, shortcuts, etcetera are already pre-loaded and each machine
looks identical when a client logs in for the first time. I had previously
hinted on the ideal of using one login, however due to the interest in
traffic and logging by higher authorities, we are forced to provide each
individual client with a separate login.

So, when you have 1000 machines, 3500 clients logging in randomly to
different machines, sometimes as many as 5 different machines a day, without
the ability to use roaming profiles, you end up having to frequently delete
profiles.

The easy solution, use roaming profiles, however we do not have the budget
or the funds so hence we must either visit each machine or connect remotely
to each machine and delete the profiles.

I have also looked at delprof, however it deletes the administrator profile
along with all profiles, and I need to be able to keep the admin and two
other special profiles on the drives at all times.

So...Any ideals are greatly appreciated.

Thanks Again.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Anteaus,

I will look at Autoit, seems as though I have run across that
before. I just wish it would write the script! Anyways...

I realize to most people that they want their client to login and
receive the same desktop settings, however in our case due to the
volume of clients utilizing different machines, and the fact that
most of these clients login once or twice a day to a different
machine, we do not really want to retain their settings. We are
using a common desktop environment, in which all the applications,
shortcuts, etcetera are already pre-loaded and each machine looks
identical when a client logs in for the first time. I had
previously hinted on the ideal of using one login, however due to
the interest in traffic and logging by higher authorities, we are
forced to provide each individual client with a separate login.

So, when you have 1000 machines, 3500 clients logging in randomly to
different machines, sometimes as many as 5 different machines a
day, without the ability to use roaming profiles, you end up having
to frequently delete profiles.

The easy solution, use roaming profiles, however we do not have the
budget or the funds so hence we must either visit each machine or
connect remotely to each machine and delete the profiles.

I have also looked at delprof, however it deletes the administrator
profile along with all profiles, and I need to be able to keep the
admin and two other special profiles on the drives at all times.

So...Any ideals are greatly appreciated.

Mandatory profiles, custom logoff script, custom startup script.

The custom startup script could easily be made to delete all profiles other
than the ones you want to keep and would be able to because after a reboot -
everything (the other profiles) would definitely not be loaded anymore.

As far as roaming profiles being the solution - I have utilized them in an
environment with 40,000+ usedrs and 1200+ computers spread out over many
different buildings on a campus. They work fine, but you still get corrupt
profiles and remnants of the profiles left on the machines whether or not
you are telling them to delete and the removal of these profiles using a
startup script is the only automated process one can do realistically.

I am unsure why you need the actual profiles of the admin/other users.
Since everyone has the same profile when they logged on - you could have
that profile up on your domain server (NETLOGON share) and that Default User
would be downloaded everytime someone logged into a machine for the first
time and they had no local profile loacted on it. Roaming profiles *not*
necessary.