Size of user profile?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Michael Smith
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Michael Smith

I was checking the advanced settings on XP home when I noticed that of the 5
user profiles on my PC most are shown as around 200mb or less.
My eldest daughters, however, is 1.35gb!
I'm not a great expert on profiles but what could this mean and how do I
reduce the size?
Presumably dealing with something this large will affect the performance of
my PC.
I have done the usual cleanup and deleted internet temporary files with no
effect.

Thanks - Mick
 
Michael said:
I was checking the advanced settings on XP home when I noticed that
of the 5 user profiles on my PC most are shown as around 200mb or
less.
My eldest daughters, however, is 1.35gb!
I'm not a great expert on profiles but what could this mean and how
do I reduce the size?
Presumably dealing with something this large will affect the
performance of my PC.
I have done the usual cleanup and deleted internet temporary files
with no effect.
Click to expand...

Your daughter obviously has files (music most likely - pictures possibly,
installation programs maybe) on her desktop or in "My Documents". The only
cleanup solution would be to have her erase them.. and unless you have
roaming profiles, it's just not going to make much of a performance hit.
 
check her local settings -> temp folder, cookies, and
temporary internet files. M$ does something aggravating
with the temp internet, you have to be an advanced user to
clean it without logging in as her and using IE to delete
them. However, you can safely delete the folder when
logged in as anyone else, it will come back without any
help from you. Local settings is hidden but behaves
normally. I use cygwin's unix shell to delete and find the
hidden junk, it can see and remove things that M$ hides
from command prompts and windows explorer. I just find
that easier than logging in and out. Also make her compact
her email (folders->compact in express) and you should
delete the sent items and deleted items dbx files from her
email folder (local settings, -> something, identities,
number) unless she moved it.


This will help, but if she has movies, installed programs,
images,music, or other big file content, it will not help
much. If she does a lot of email, the deleted and sent can
get HUGE, while inbox will grow but never shrink if you
don't compact. Those 3 could easily = a gig if she sends
and gets a lot of attachments.
 
Mick:

The fact that your daughter's file allocation size is
that high is due to the need for storage space. Ask her
to go through her files and remove things she isn't using
anymore. If she is storing files in 'my documents' or on
her desktop this will cause the system to commit more
memory resource for her account. You should also look
into marketing software that may be on the machine, and
additional Internet storage files and cache. A great
product for cleaning your machine and enhancing online
privacy is the SurfSecret Privacy Manager, avail at their
web site for 30 day fee evaluation: www.surfsecret.com (I
have no affiliation but I do use their product). You may
also want to use some spyware removal software as well.

Mike
 
Mick:

The fact that your daughter's file allocation size is
that high is due to the need for storage space. Ask her
to go through her files and remove things she isn't using
anymore. If she is storing files in 'my documents' or on
her desktop this will cause the system to commit more
memory resource for her account. You should also look
into marketing software that may be on the machine, and
additional Internet storage files and cache. A great
product for cleaning your machine and enhancing online
privacy is the SurfSecret Privacy Manager, avail at their
web site for 30 day fee evaluation: www.surfsecret.com (I
have no affiliation but I do use their product). You may
also want to use some spyware removal software as well.

(e-mail address removed)
 
Thanks very much for the replies.
You've certainly given me something to investigate!

Mick
 
Michael said:
I was checking the advanced settings on XP home when I noticed that of the 5
user profiles on my PC most are shown as around 200mb or less.
My eldest daughters, however, is 1.35gb!
I'm not a great expert on profiles but what could this mean and how do I
reduce the size?
Presumably dealing with something this large will affect the performance of
my PC.
I have done the usual cleanup and deleted internet temporary files with no
effect.
Click to expand...

Most likely the bulk is music files downloaded from Kazaa or some other
file sharing (music stealing) network. Not only does her profile have a
lot of large files (which does not affect performance) she has likely
downloaded and installed various trojans (which do affect your performance).
 
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