Managing user profiles question

I have a problem where all these users are using each other's machines. This leads to an overload of user profiles on their machines. I really dont want to have to go to EACH machine and manually remove them. Is there a way I can weed out these profiles. I need to be able to set parameters/rules for it (i.e. last logged on [to avoid deleting an active user profile]) We are hesitant to implement mandatory profiles because we have users that need different rights and alot of other details.

any help would be appreciated.

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Comments

dynamik

Why don't you use roaming profiles for the users who are always on the move?

paintb4707

Is it really necessary to even delete the profiles? I'd imagine they aren't saving anything but instead using a different pc for immediate use, which leaves you with a user profile that takes up only a few megs of space.

What about setting logon rights in AD for users that you don't want roaming or using specific workstations?

If you really need to know what profiles are newly created, all you would have to do is go to C:\Documents and Settings\ and check every folder for a recent creation date.

deadpool287

alot of unknown factors we have yet to get into. looking of a solution for a current situation without getting into mandatory profiles. our users put music on their pcs which takes up hard drive space.(which we allow)

paintb4707

deadpool287 wrote:

alot of unknown factors we have yet to get into. looking of a solution for a current situation without getting into mandatory profiles. our users put music on their pcs which takes up hard drive space.(which we allow)

So they save new mp3s on every pc they use? Should they even be downloading music to begin with?

astorrs

Run delprof /q /i /d:30 /c:<computername> against each of the computers you want to cleanup and it will delete all profiles that haven't been logged into in the past 30 days.

Download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=901a9b95-6063-4462-8150-360394e98e1e&displaylang=en

deadpool287

it's from their mp3 players. and we have a scanning department and a QC room. scanning employees switch between the pcs in that department. QC switches within their department.

but their are old profiles on the pcs as well from employess we dont have anymore and it's pain to keep track of who's who.

Claymoore

Are your PCs loaded with Vista?

There is a group policy setting under Computer Configuration\Admin Templates\System\User Profiles called Delete user profiles older than a specified number of days on system restart but it requires Windows Vista.

Otherwise you are probably looking at the delprof tool astorrs mentioned, wrapped in a powershell script that reads a list of computer names, and run as a scheduled task.

BradleyHU

dynamik wrote:

Why don't you use roaming profiles for the users who are always on the move?

that was the first thing i thought. i remember we had those when i was in undergrad. that was the best, because all my data was saved to a server...so whether i was in the school library, the lab for the CSC/CIS majors, or in the lab in the english building where i had my work-study, i always had access to my data. it just took my profile a while to load cuz i had a bit of music and what not.

deadpool287

Thank you guys. I'm going to try astorsss' suggestion.
No majority of them are using XP. I think there are couple using windows 2k

Claymoore

BradleyHU wrote:

dynamik wrote:

Why don't you use roaming profiles for the users who are always on the move?

that was the first thing i thought. i remember we had those when i was in undergrad. that was the best, because all my data was saved to a server...so whether i was in the school library, the lab for the CSC/CIS majors, or in the lab in the english building where i had my work-study, i always had access to my data. it just took my profile a while to load cuz i had a bit of music and what not.

The profiles will still be downloaded to the workstations and left behind. As I understand it, the issue is not getting the profile data to follow the users, it's getting rid of the profiles after they move on.

dynamik

Sorry, I meant with folder redirection. Unless he had a huge number of people doing this, I would imagine that the extra profiles would be negligible.

That delprof tool looks cool though. That was the first I've seen that -- thanks!

astorrs

dynamik wrote:

That delprof tool looks cool though. That was the first I've seen that -- thanks!

We deployed it on all the Citrix servers (along with UPHClean) and combined with FlexProfiles it makes for a tidy environment.