Is it safe to remove the domain domain user profile from the computer that is part of the domain? I don't want to delete the account from the domain itself, i just need to remove the profile from this computer, to do some cleanup.

I'm currently using a vista computer for business but we also have win xp pro and win 7 pro

Best Answer


Method 1 (easy and safe)

  • Open up "Control Panel | System and Security | System"
  • In the dialog click on "Advanced system settings" (requires Admin rights)
  • The "System Properties" dialog will be displayed
  • Make sure you are in the "Advanced" register
  • In the "User Profiles" section click on "Settings"
  • The "User Profiles" dialog is displayed
  • Select the account. Hit the delete button

Method 2 (slight variation of method 1)

  • Start | Run
  • sysdm.cpl
  • switch to register "Advanced"
  • In the "User Profiles" section click on "Settings"
  • The "User Profiles" dialog is displayed
  • You need to select a given account Hit delete.

The greyed out button possibly means that the registry hive has not been released by the operating system as pointed out in the comments by joeqwerty

Method 3 (manual and prone to errors)

Delete the C:\Users\[ACCOUNT] directory. Those registry entries must be manually deleted as follows

  • Open Regedit with Administrator Permissions (Runas Administrator)
  • Select the HKEY_USERS branch
  • Search for the Domain Account without the domain (e.g. login = DOMAIN\ACCOUNT then search for ACCOUNT)
  • Keep on searching until the status bar shows Computer\HKEY_USERS\[SID]\Software\Microsoft\Windwos\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
  • There should be a large list of your ACCOUNTs folders e.g. C:\Users\ACCOUNT\Desktop

You are in the right HKEY_USERS\[SID]\Software\Microsoft\Windwos\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders branch if the ACCOUNT in "Shell Folders" matches the ACCOUNT you just manually deleted form the C:\Users\[ACCOUNT] directory. This branch [SID] can be exported and/or deleted to clean up the last of the user profile.