User Profile Cannot Be Loaded

[ScottD536]

Hi,

 

As the title states we are getting a lot of user profile errors since switching students from Roaming to local profiles (with folder redirection). We have a GPO in place to delete local profiles every 5 days (we have over 2000 students on one campus) and only 128GB SSD's. I think the problem is in the deleting of the profile and it not removing certain users fully, instead leaving a "?" in place of the username, thus generating the error.

 

My question is how do I avoid this? We can go into Advance System Settings/User Profiles and delete any profile that has "?" instead of a username to fix this, but with pushing 1000 PC's this isn't a long term solution!

 

We run Windows 10 Ent on all machines, all served by Windows 2012 R2 servers, any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks.

[mrwoberts]

Use a scheduled task with something like DelProf2

LINK

[3s-gtech]

This is usually caused by the entries in the registry for that user remaining. They're under:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/947215/you-receive-a-the-user-profile-service-failed-the-logon-error-message (I know this is for 7, but the same may apply). This is why mandatory profiles are useful for students as they delete themselves at logoff, but I know not everyone is a fan.

[ScottD536]

I think you are right about the registry entries being the problem as manual removal does fix it. It's just not practical doing that to such a large amount of machines all the time! Do you think DelProf2 will be able to remove them better than the standard windows removal?

[3s-gtech]

Not better perhaps, but it's more flexible than the Windows removal set by Group Policy, and if you're having this issue it's definitely worth a go.

[HallX]

Do you think DelProf2 will be able to remove them better than the standard windows removal?

 

Definitely. We have Delprof on all our local hard drives & a GP which runs a batch file on startup when we want to delete the profiles.

[ScottD536]

Ok, thanks for the suggestions I will give it a go and report back my results!

[ScottD536]

So I have looked into DelProf2 but am not really sure how to use it properly. When I run it all I get is a simple yes and no query, I cant customise age of profiles etc. Am I doing something wrong? Or is there a specific way to use this that I am unaware of?

[mrwoberts]

Am I doing something wrong? Or is there a specific way to use this that I am unaware of?

Yes! You need to read the syntax and example instructions...

 

I think this will achieve what you want (NB: it excludes the local administrator account. Add any other users you don't want deleted /ed:)

This assumes you have placed the DelProf2.exe in the windows folder.

::Run on a local machine
%windir%\delprof2.exe  /ed:administrator  /q  /d:5  /i

 

You can also run the app from the domain server and point it at a domain workstation.

::Run on a Domain Server
%windir%\delprof2.exe /c:\\>  /ed:administrator  /q  /d:5  /i

Edited March 29, 2017 by mrwoberts

[ScottD536]

Thanks for the info! I am now testing it on a few of my frequent offenders as a startup process with only the silent switch. If I have read correctly this should remove any profile accept the default accounts, i will post results after when I have had a few more users on it and hopefully will see some progress.

 

This seems a bit stupid having to go through all of this because the built in Microsoft option doesn't work? Has anyone actually managed to get it working?

[Oaktech]

The auto deletion function in GPO has never worked properly to my knowledge. In XP and 7 it frequently just didn't do anything, 8x and 10 show the behaviour you have described. I have a scripted DelProf task on every startup for machines with SSDs. It adds around 2-30 seconds to boot time depending on how heavily the machines have been used since it last ran.

[mrwoberts]

@ScottD536, I would avoid adding it as part of your boot/login process, for the reason Oaktech states, it can slow down things slightly - depends on your environment.

I'd create a scheduled task to run your script once per day, when the PC has been idle for 5 minutes; or some other similar criteria. You can do that with Group Policy. In fact, there was an article not long ago (can't remember the link), where I read that a number of maintenance jobs are now better served through a scheduled task - things which I used to do via GPO. A definite improvement.

[Oaktech]

@ScottD536, I would avoid adding it as part of your boot/login process, for the reason Oaktech states, it can slow down things slightly - depends on your environment.

I'd create a scheduled task to run your script once per day, when the PC has been idle for 5 minutes; or some other similar criteria. You can do that with Group Policy. In fact, there was an article not long ago (can't remember the link), where I read that a number of maintenance jobs are now better served through a scheduled task - things which I used to do via GPO. A definite improvement.

 

I would agree with this.

 

I've only not done it like this because I needed a quick solution once upon a time and I've not been bothered to change it as it works smoothly (if slowly) across all my various OS' and hardware platforms. When I finally go fully w10 next summer I'll do a single scheduled task GPO.

[ScottD536]

Login times are definitely something I don't want to increase at the moment, what about at shut down rather than startup? All PC's are scheduled to shut down at the end of the day so this seems like a logical choice?

[mrwoberts]

Possibly, but for general maintenance such as this, it can be done during an idle moment - keep those workstations busy and they'll look after themselves

Before shutdown is when you may want to manage other tasks, such reboot & update...