Multiple similar local profiles

[Ignatius]

I have a test setup at home - Windows 2003 AD and a single XP Pro client. There are several users and groups configured, mapped folders etc. and eveything works fine, except I've seen multiple local profiles on the client.

I expected the Administrator and Administrator.MyDomain profiles, but other duplicate similar profiles are also created:

User1, User1.MyDomain
User2, User2.MyDomain etc.

It doesn't happen for every user and there doesn't seem to be any pattern to the users affected, their group, the day or time of logging onto the domain etc. I have deleted the profiles (using DelProf.exe or DeleteProfiles.exe), rebooted client and server but the problem recurs.

I read about corrupted or orphaned profiles causing a similar problem, so I installed MS User Profile Hive Cleanup Service (Download details: User Profile Hive Cleanup Service), deleted the profiles and rebooted ---> same problem!

It doesn't affect the functionality of my test setup, and I know that I can delete unwanted profiles, but I'd like to know WHY this is happening so I can avoid it. Finally, I haven't set anything clever like roaming profiles, offline files, folder redirection etc.

Any suggestions or is this a "feature" (AKA "bug"!)?

[elsiegee40]

Until somebody more learned says otherwise, I have long regarded this as an irritating feature, that gets treated with delprof

[Ignatius]

Until somebody more learned says otherwise, I have long regarded this as an irritating feature, that gets treated with delprof

That's reassuring and an indication that it's not due to something that I have (or not) configured!

Any other comments about this quirk?

[sted]

i think it happens when windows cant unload the registry for whatever reason so it cant delete the profile

[Ignatius]

Thanks sted. When I was investigating initially, I came across the possibility of a corrupted or orphaned profile, so I used the Hive Cleanup service without success. Since thinking about this further, I can't understand how failure to unload the registry makes it impossible to delete the profile. I've seen maybe 20 "normal" profiles on the client plus a further 2 or 3 profiles with the .MyDomain suffix. I don't do anything differently to cause the client to create the multiple similar profiles and, as I mentioned, there's no pattern WRT time, day, whether I log off before logging on again or shutdown before logging on again etc.

This is so frustrating. I know the behaviour's been reported here and elsewhere but I've not come across any reliable way of avoiding it.

[tmcd35]

The NTUser.DAT file in the roaming profile is essentially a list of registry entries. If Windows, for whatever reason, can't unload the registry then it can't delete this file which means it can't delete the profile.

I've seen it here a few times and thus far have always put it down to Winsuite getting in the way and corrupting everything. I've not got rid of WinSuite so we'll see.

Have you got "Delete roaming profiles" enabled in a GPO? Could be worth a try.

[sted]

The NTUser.DAT file in the roaming profile is essentially a list of registry entries. If Windows, for whatever reason, can't unload the registry then it can't delete this file which means it can't delete the profile.

I've seen it here a few times and thus far have always put it down to Winsuite getting in the way and corrupting everything. I've not got rid of WinSuite so we'll see.

Have you got "Delete roaming profiles" enabled in a GPO? Could be worth a try.

i find it does it more without winsuite. Its probably down to some badly written piece of software that dosent close of all its files/reg entrys properly on exit. I tend to have it on the same user same pc a lot one user it created so many copies it wouldnt allow her to login until id emptied them out. As all users share the same mandatory profile (well ok staff have 1 pupils another but apart from the start menu they are 100% the same) i assume shes always running the same program/web addon etc thats not written well im tempted to guess acrobat as that dosent like roaming profiles much but i cant prove it and as its easy to fix by shoving a script on that pcs startup that emptys the d&s folder of all profiles but needed ones ive never looked into it that much

[Ignatius]

I don't have Roaming Profiles configured, nor do I have any programs installed. My test client is just XP Pro SP3 which is fully updated so the behaviour must be something to do with the operating system rather than a conflict caused by any additional software.

I'll look into setting GPO to delete roaming profiles, even though they're not set. I doubt it can do any harm!

[sted]

if you are using local profiles (thats how i read the above) the same can happen the registry dosent get closed off properly so cant be added to at a later date hence the duplicates and the gpo settings for roaming profiles wont remove them

[Ignatius]

Hmm - what I thought would be relatively simple to get my head around is turning out to be a bit more involved. Never mind though as I have time on my hands!