[mrsbailey]

Hello All!

I am a computer application's teacher at a small junior high school. I deal mainly with programs, so my networking and hardware knowledge is VERY limited.

I create a user profile in the active directory for every student that I will have in class. They have a specific username and password that allows them access to their own folder on the lab server.

My students use 2003 Gateways with the XP operating system. Recently we have added a virus protection program to all computers that is uses up a lot of the free memory the computers had. The technology coordinator for our school recommended I free up some memory, but didn't give me any good ideas how to start :4-dontkno. I deleted all unused programs, etc. but they are still really slow.

I delete my student's accounts from the active directory every year, but I didn't realize that their profiles are stored on the computer itself. So I have about 4 years worth of student profiles stored on every computer. Plus, it seems to create profiles at random. Obviously there are profiles from students who used the computer, but there are also profiles from students that I know never even set foot in my class :4-dontkno.

My question: What is the most effective (and fastest) way to go about deleting these profiles?

Currently I am right clicking on Start and navigating to the user folders that way. I highlight about 10 at a time and delete them. This takes FOREVER and sometimes I get a message that says another computer is using something in the folder and it can't delete the profile. I then have to start over and try to figure out which profile cannot be deleted. I have 30 student computers that I have to go through this process with.

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be faster to reformat them all.

Sorry for the book, but my degree is actually in English so I tend to be quite wordy :wink:.

Shiela

 

[gr00m]

Did you ever find out the answer for this? I'm in a similar situation. I came into a small office with about 12 computers and have taken over most of the desktop support. At one time or another, all the computers have changed hands and each has a user folder for every employee. I wouldn't care, but the doc & settings folder on most PC's are 14-25gb. Most was in the my documents folder, so that content was deleted, though each account still has .75-2gb throughout misc. folders.

My question is if I can just delete these old user folders or if I need to keep them?

I've read in other posts here that if the a specific user installed a program (lets say MS word since all users will use it), then it's settings are tied to that specific users account and deleting it will cause word to have problems.

 

[carsey]

Go into C:\Documents and settings\ and you should see the user profiles listed there.

Make sure that you leave the administrator and the local logon account present.

 

[gr00m]

asside from the user profiles I have:

_SBS_NETSETUP_
Administrator
All Users
Default Users

So, just leave those and it's safe to delete the rest?

 

[nickster_uk]

Leave your own too....unless it's the _SBS_NETSETUP_ one

It's best delete the user profiles from Control Panel -> User Accounts. However, if they've already been deleted from there, it would be ok to delete the leftover folders....as long as you're sure there's no vital business data in those folders.

 

[gr00m]

Cool, thanks

The _netsetup_ one is new to me, it's on all the PC's at work here. Not sure why, might have to check with the IT company that setup our server/domain. I think it's got something to do with that.