Windows 7 - Clear local profile after certain number of days

[Davit2005]

We seem to be having issues with laptops that the profiles seem to get corrupted, prob not helped by having so much software installed on the machines :-(

 

I've seen in GPO's that it is possible to delete profiles after a number of days, does this delete the Default profile which we have created due to some applications needing to install/write files to the profile area so that they work?

 

I would like to maybe set it to delete profiles atfer a couple of days, also on some particular laptops (with only 40GB HDD's), we have had the issue that users have not been able to logon due to the profile service caused by only having 400MB left on the C drive. After re-image of the laptops there is normally 15GB to play with.

 

We do not have mandatory or roaming profiles for any users but I am going to test a mandatory profile for students now that we seem to have updated the software that was not happy with Mandatory profiles.

 

Cheers for any help.

[rich_tech]

Hi,

 

I use the following GPO to clean out all profiles automatically on windows 7 at the school I work, no doubt its the same area your looking at,

 

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > User Profiles

 

Delete user profiles older than a specified number of days on system restart Enabled

Delete user profiles older than (days) 7

 

It basically cleans out all profiles the machines on our network, (I have a seperate security group with all the computers I want cleaned out in to prevent loss of profiles on some special machines we have)

 

-

 

The default profile doesnt get touched from what I have seen on the machines on our network.

 

We also use mandatory profiles for both staff and pupils on our network which prevent them editing anything outside of their own documents on the network.

 

If you have small laptop drives you may want to set limits on their them through quotas as well to prevent them creating massive profiles on the machines.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Richard

[ScottLogan]

I have had massive issues with Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > User Profiles

 

Delete user profiles older than a specified number of days on system restart Enabled

Delete user profiles older than (days) 7

 

this caused data loss on my network so please test well.

 

from this i use delprof2. have been testing and works well so far.

just google it, some guy as modified delprof to work with windows 7

[rich_tech]

well, with us as I said, we use mandatory profiles all regular users - staff and pupils get a set desktop and start menu, it also just maps their network space then for saving their data too, so deleting the profile on a local machine here doesnt do much, our profiles are less than 50 meg. We dont allow users to save anything locally here and everything is locked down that way to prevent accidental data loss by preventing users saving anything on a local hard disk.

 

On a laptop, that GPO will cause problems obviously if the laptop isnt on a network, because everything is saved locally, which is why I said about quotas, because its easier just to specify how much a user can save on a laptop than an unlimited profile size.

[witch]

I use roaming for staff etc and we have delprof2 AND the Group Policy enabled, both on my 2003 and 2008R2 network. I havent seen any data loss and it all works reasonably well - some profiles still get left behind but the majority disappear

[Davit2005]

Well seems to delete ok, thanks for all input.

 

Leaves the users folder behind but it is empty apart from appdata folder which seems empty and testing a couple of users they seem to log on ok.

 

Just tried on the 4 laptops at the moment. Going to keep a laptop behind to one side and try logging on with the Users profile folder still in place.

[Davit2005]

I have had massive issues with Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > User Profiles

 

Delete user profiles older than a specified number of days on system restart Enabled

Delete user profiles older than (days) 7

 

this caused data loss on my network so please test well.

 

from this i use delprof2. have been testing and works well so far.

just google it, some guy as modified delprof to work with windows 7

 

Have you got roaming profiles setup, I don't have roaming profiles and the policy is only for Laptops at the moment and not in the Default Domain Policy.

 

I'm only seeming to have profile problems with Wireless laptops, the occasional issue with desktops but this is normally because an application doesn't work properly.

 

Regards,

David

[ScottLogan]

I use GPO client side extentions to distribute the delprof2.exe file to the computers.

Then i run this vbs script on computer start up

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

strExe = "c:\delprof\delprof2.exe /u /q /i /r"

Return = WshShell.Run(strexe, 0, false)

Wscript.Quit

I don't get any folders left behind. If you do this may be because something is still access the folder like an AV.

 

Hi David,

I can't remeber exactly what happened it was about 4 years ago I played with that setting. I just remember coming to work one day and having massive user data lose becuase of that one policy. Yes i have roaming profile

[Davit2005]

Well I got a staff member to login with their profile folder still in place and it all seemed to work ok. And I can confirm as Rich Tech said that it leaves the Default profile in place.

 

The main issue I was having was some models of Domain Laptops were frequently not getting Start Menu redirection correctly, from what I found a local profile clear would do the trick.

[Davit2005]

Does delprof2 delete the users folder but still keep the Default Users folder?

 

After initially having good results (first 4 Laptops) I am now getting issues, I am having these issues only on Ergo 411's.

 

All workstations (100+), RM Laptops (24) are ok. When I built these laptop images I had right issues trying to get the WiFi drivers, ergo wouldn't help to get even Vista drivers.

 

The laptops haven't had any updates since I built the images in summer 2011. I was hesitant to do a WSUS server incase it broke things, I really havent got time to check updates before deployment and am the only techie able to sort out the issues as well as do all the other usual stuff needed.