Users Roaming Profile wont load, cannot delete profile on server?

[jamin100]

Ok, I have a bit of a strange one here.

 

Every now and again our Heads and Bursars roaming profile's wont load up on their machines. Normally o would just delete the profile and let it be recreated when they logon.

 

But...

There seems to be a problem with URL's stored in their recent docuuments folder that i cannot delete or take ownership of.

 

The files in question are always in

 

d:\Profiles\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\Office\Recent

 

and they always seem to be URL shortcuts. When I right click > Propeties on them all I get is the general tab. nohing else. I cannot delete them, change permissions or anything. I have changed the permissions on the top level folder and told it to filter down to all child folders and files but it still comes up with an error saying that it cannot do it for these particular files as access is denied.

 

I've made sure that the files are not in use and the users in question are logged off. This has so far only happened to two users..

 

Once i reboot the server the files in question are gone but the user still cannot log on because the local PC cannot find the profile on the server. The only way around it is to delete the profile and let it recreate itself the next time they log on. This obviously looses all there personal settings. This has happened twice this week and I cant really go around rebooting the server just to fix this issue in the middle of the day

 

Anyone got any ideas?

Edited December 1, 2009 by jamin100

[elsiegee40]

Have you tried renaming the profiles on both the server and locally? It won't get rid of them, but as far as the user is concerned when they try to logon, their profile will have been deleted.

[jamin100]

Yeh - it wont let me. Access denied. After a reboot of the server however it'll let me delete or rename it.

[gshaw]

Did you try and reboot the PCs that had the profile loaded as well? We've had roaming profiles that get stuck when we try to reset them and they hook into Windows Explorer and won't go until the reboot is done (or sometimes killing explorer.exe does the trick)

[jamin100]

Did you try and reboot the PCs that had the profile loaded as well? We've had roaming profiles that get stuck when we try to reset them and they hook into Windows Explorer and won't go until the reboot is done (or sometimes killing explorer.exe does the trick)

 

Yup, Tried that. Profile still gets stuck on the server.

 

Really need to get to the bottom of this . . .

[zag]

Why bother with roaming profiles in the first place? Just delete the profile link in active directory and they will run off the locally copied profiles.

 

If you have group Policies setup properly there is no need for roaming profiles these days as far as I can see.

 

Removing ours was one of the best improvements I made to the network. No more corruption or login problems and the end users don't notice the difference other than having to click next twice on outlook 2007 on new machines they use.

[gshaw]

I guess it depends how much users move around machines and how annoying they find it if their personal settings don't follow them. Still need mandatory ones on our teaching PCs as GPOs can't position toolbars, change certain fiddly program settings etc

[chazzy2501]

Install the UPHClean (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1B286E6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en)

 

I've deployed this in my network I can now delete any profile without the need to reset the PC first. It also allows GPO to remove old profiles that previously stuck.

[jamin100]

Install the UPHClean (Download details: User Profile Hive Cleanup Service)

 

I've deployed this in my network I can now delete any profile without the need to reset the PC first. It also allows GPO to remove old profiles that previously stuck.

 

UPHClean is installed on all the client machines.