But it has a ReparsePoint attribute and a … This process will remove the user profile from the file system and the registry. This was a Windows 2008 R2 Remote Desktop server, but this could have just as easily happened to a system running Windows 7 or Windows 8, or even Windows 2012. After this, I began to think of a way to make a script that will allow a help desk person, desktop support admin or a server admin to run the script and have it prompt for a machine, rather local or remote to make a connection to and then present a list of user profiles and the option to remove a specified profile. Subscribe to Adam the Automator for updates: Microsoft Cognitive Services: Azure Custom Text to Speech, Building PowerShell Security Tools in a Windows Environment, Building a Client Troubleshooting Tool in PowerShell, Building Advanced PowerShell Functions and Modules, Client-Side PowerShell Scripting for Reliable SCCM Deployments, Planning & Creating Applications in System Center ConfigMgr 2012, files that need shared across all user profiles, figuring out how to recreate corrupt profiles. Delete Unused user Profiles on local machine (PowerShell) ... Delete Unused user Profiles on local machine (PowerShell) This PowerShell script shows how to delete unused user profiles on local machine. “Total size of profiles”,'{0:N2} GB' -f ($sum / 1Gb). Updating List of Trusted Root Certificates in Windows 10/8.1/7, Allow RDP Access to Domain Controller for Non-admin Users, Backup/Restore and Export Local Group Policy Settings to Another Computer. Approving the script and puttin… In the Advanced tab, in the User Profiles section click Settings. The main problem of any Remote Desktop server is the constant growth the size of user profile directories on a local drive. Description. Windows system administrators have to deal with: What was once a frustrating experience has gotten a little less frustrating with PowerShell. Delprof2 does it all. As promised in my previous post,I am back with a Powershell script which helps you in deleting a user’s windows profile either on local computer or on multiple remote computers.This script users Win32_UserProfile class which is available in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 2008(R2). The total size of all user profiles in C:\Users is 31,5 GB. NOTE: Deleting user profiles with this script will delete just the user profile. Download. Once you’re able to narrow down that single profile you can pass that CIM instance to the Remove-CimInstance cmdlet for each object that Get-CimInstance returns. You can do this by using PowerShell’s Where-Object cmdlet and some string manipulation to grab the user folder name from the LocalPath property as shown below. This will not delete their My Site or send out that notification like the My Site cleanup job. WARNING! In this case, remove the user profile called UserA. The proper way to do this is to initiate a removal via CIM. Cannot delete a user profile I've followed Method three of the MS help article 947215. Note that we do not need to specify the domain name in this command. Now that I am located in the Windows temp folder, I need to delete the files. In CIM, a class exists called Win32_UserProfile. Windows OS Hub / PowerShell / How to Delete Old User Profiles Using GPO and PowerShell? $sum = $sum + $len As before, I created a GPO but this time navigated to Computer Configuration – Policies – Windows Settings – Scripts and double-clicked on Startup. There's a better way and that's through WMI or CIM. The correct way to manually delete a user profile in Windows is to open System Properties, go to Advanced System Settings -> User Profiles -> Settings, select a user in the list (the Size column shown the size of the profile on the local drive) and click the Delete button. WARNING: This script will delete user profiles specified in the file. } A simple description about PowerShell. Then select the user profile that needs to be cleaned and click Delete. Delprof2 has additional filtering options: you might want to delete locally cached copies of roaming user profiles only or delete only profiles that have not been used in a specified number of days. You may need to catch up to fully understand everything I’m doing in this article, which uses a PowerShell computer start up script to remove old user profiles. In this post, I’m going to demonstrate a way you take out your aggression by using PowerShell to delete user profiles (and discover them). Windows 10 has a unique problem in version 1809 with the "Office" app creating strangely linked files and directories under the user profile. But this is a manual method, and you may want to automate it. Open Control Panel. You’ve now seen an easy way to enumerate and delete Windows user profiles. { Here’s how to do it in Windows 7. How to Block USB Drives in Windows using Group Policy. #Remove all non-active and non-system designated user profiles not used within the past month, displaying verbose output as well. Last week we were having some fun using PowerShell as a wrapper around the NetSh.exe command’s output. So it will not work for Windows XP and 2003 hosts. Again, if you’d like to extend this to multiple computers you’d simply use the ComputerName parameter on Get-CimInstance. You will need to modify the registry keys for the user profiles HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ Find the key for the user account and rename. Usually it works, sometimes it didn’t. Determining and documenting required changes. To find them, you can use the value in the LastUseTime field of the profile. GPO: Delete User Profiles Older Than a Specified Number Days, PowerShell Script to Delete Old User Profiles in Windows, System time and date changes after reboot. Here are a few ways that PowerShell can make managing Windows user profiles easier. After deleting the profile, users can log in again and a new profiles directory will be created for them. The way around is to use Invoke-Command to execute the command right on the remote computer. Then rename the users folder c:\users\johnx to keep as a backup. Checking User Logon History in Active Directory Domain... How to Disable/Remove Thumbs.db File on Network Folders... USB Device Passthrough (Redirect) to Hyper-V Virtual Machine. To help admins manage local users and groups with PowerShell more easily, Microsoft provides a cmdlet collection called Microsoft.PowerShell.LocalAccounts.Previously, you had to download and import it into PowerShell explicitly, and also install Windows Management Framework 5.1; in the Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 operating systems, the cmdlet collection is included as a … 1 – Open your Windows Powershell which located in your taskbar. Delete Local User Profiles Remotely using a PowerShell Script (DelProf2.exe) April 30, 2017 May 12, 2017 / Cameron Yates In this post we are going to look at utilizing a tool called DelProf and a small PowerShell script to delete user profiles on workstations remotely. It is partially solved by enabling quotas on the maximum user profiles size (with FSRM or NTFS quotas). Over the last few articles I’ve been demonstrating ways to leverage PowerShell scripts with Group Policy. System.Management.Automation.SecurityAccountsManager.LocalUser, System.String, System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifierYou can pipe a local user, a string, or a SID to this cmdlet. However, what is the right command to delete only a specific user profile? Startup scripts in Group Policy On the PowerShell Scripts tab I clicked on Show Files and copied the script to the GPO so it would replicate. On the left side, click Advanced system settings as shown in Figure 1. At one time, I would simply have the user log off and remove the C:\Users folder from the file system. Preparing Windows for Adobe Flash End of Life on December 31, 2020, Checking User Logon History in Active Directory Domain with PowerShell. {$_.LastUseTime -lt 'somedate'} | %{$_.Delete()} That is the tool used in Vista and later to delete profiles. If you no longer need the account, you can remove it using these steps on PowerShell: Open Start. Creating Active Directory objects performs from AD on Windows Server. Below, I’m finding the first user profile on the the local computer. Thank you for the very detailed article. Once you understand how to enumerate user profiles on computers, you can take it one step further and delete those user profiles as well. One of the steps I had to take, to cleanup the malware, was recreating a specific user profile. 22233.zip. You can do it if after manually deleting the folder, you will delete the user profile section with the link to this folder from the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\ProfileList. Using Remove-WmiObject to get rid of the Win32_UserProfile sets only clears out the user home folders. Wow, what kind of directory junction has no target or linktype?? Now LocalAccounts module is available by default in Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 as a part of PowerShell 5.1. The items need to be removed indiscriminately, so I use a wildcard character. To remove a specific user profile, simply use the cmdlet Remove-WmiObject. gci -recurse -force $_.fullname -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | % { $len += $_.length } It turned out that I had 127 inactive user accounts on my RDS host (with a profiles total size of about 18 GB). This is the script I will be using: It is recommended to specify the period of 45-90 days here. To do this, enumerate the user profiles again and this time apply a filter to pick a single user profile to remove. How to delete a user profile on Windows Server 2016 Step 1: Go to advanced system settings (sysdm.cpl), advanced tab, click on settings in the user profiles box (middle of screen), under “profiles stored on this computer” click on the user profile you want to delete and press Delete. Donate Us : paypal.me/MicrosoftLabDelete User Profiles in Windows Server 20161. However, if there are a lot of terminal server users, with time the C:\Users directory will accumulate a huge number of directories with user profiles that are not longer needed. How to Show/Hide All User Accounts from Login Screen in Windows 10? All about operating systems for sysadmins, When using this policy, make sure that when a server is shut down or restarted there are no problems with the system time (check the article “. @2014 - 2018 - Windows OS Hub. on it I see the profile that I want to delete but the delete button is grayed out. I imagine it wouldn't be hard to do in powershell, I was just hoping not to reinvent the wheel so to speak. Even WMI can't delete the profile, nor powershell. } To remove all these profiles, it is enough to redirect the user list to the Remove-WmiObject command (prior to running the script, it is recommended to double-check its output using the –WhatIf parameter): Get-WMIObject -class Win32_UserProfile | Where {(!$_.Special) -and (!$_.Loaded) -and ($_.ConvertToDateTime($_.LastUseTime) -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-30))} | Remove-WmiObject –WhatIf. You’ll notice many useful tidbits of information like LastUseTime, SID and so on. Log the account in again and a new profile will be created. Delete Unused user Profiles on local machine (PowerShell) ... Delete Unused user Profiles on local machine (PowerShell) This PowerShell script shows how to delete unused user profiles on local machine. 22233.zip. { $_ -is [io.directoryinfo] } | % { This is the same as going into the User Profiles box under System settings and hitting the Delete button. Write-host $LocalProfile.LocalPath, "profile deleted” -ForegroundColor Magenta But this is a manual method, and you may want to automate it. Simply look in the C:\Users folder. Our configuration process used to rely on scripts that made changes by following a set of steps. Normally, if I want to clean up old user profiles on a local system, I will just use the native tool. Running the following snippet in your PowerShell window and see what you get. The correct way to manually delete a user profile in Windows is to open System Properties, go to Advanced System Settings -> User Profiles -> Settings, select a user in the list (the Size column shown the size of the profile on the local drive) and click the Delete button. 4. Enable the policy and specify the number of days a user profile is considered active. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. Typically, a script would be implemented by: 1. Last week we were having some fun using PowerShell as a wrapper around the NetSh.exe command’s output. { But not only are you not getting the full picture when you do this, it's also troublesome due to potential file system access problems. But the problem is that you can’t pipe a result out to it to carry out the deleting process. Submitting the script for approval as part of the change process. The only other means to recover the user profile is to restore the Profile DB from backup. How to delete user profiles older than a specified number of days in Windows ... Powershell, Windows, delete user profiles, user profiles older than X days. The proper way to remove a profile manually in Windows is to go to System, click Advanced system settings, and under the Advanced tab of the System Properties window choose Settings under User Profiles. This class contains all of the profiles that exist on a machine and lots of other useful information that a simple file system folder won’t tell you. In past versions of Windows server, I could just delete that folder to get rid of the user profile and the next time they logged into the server it would re-create the profile using the default settings. In order not to delete profiles of some users, like System and Network Service accounts, a local administrator account, accounts of users having active sessions, account exception list), you can modify the script as follows: #The list of accounts, which profiles must not be deleted Using PowerShell, you can access this CIM class with the Get-CimInstance command. }. Add PowerShell script to startup scripts The script has a default value of 30 but in the screenshot I am setting it to 45 days. This can be done with the old DOS command Del, but I prefer using the Windows Powershell cmdlet Remove-Item to standardize the script. The above commands work on Windows 7, Windows 8, XP and also on all Server editions. You can see there’s much more to the user profile than a simple file system folder. This will display the User Profiles dialog as shown in Figure 2. Recently Microsoft has added a standard PowerShell module to manage Windows local users and groups called Microsoft.PowerShell.LocalAccounts. Select your user profile and click Delete. ($ExcludedUsers -like $LocalProfile.LocalPath.Replace("C:\Users\",""))) Here’s a useful script that will automatically delete ALL user profiles that are on a Windows Server 2008/R2 computer. On Windows workstations and servers, especially on RDS (Remote Desktop Services) servers, there is a regular need to remove old (unused) user profiles from C:\Users. $ExcludedUsers ="Public","zabbix_agent","svc",”user_1”,”user_2” In Windows, there is a built-in Group Policy to automatically delete user profiles older than xx days. I've gotten to the system properties user profile dialog box. 2. 3. I usually just add an x to the end. Click OK a few times to save the policy. What I didn’t realize was that I was actually leaving some remnants behind. It’s easy to take a peek at user profiles on the file system on a single Windows computer. Simply look in the C:\Users folder. $profiles = Get-WmiObject Win32_UserProfile Edited by Bemho Friday, September 16, 2011 7:50 PM Friday, September 16, 2011 7:50 PM This is Step by Step How to Create a User Account using PowerShell in Windows Server 2016.. For this demo, I’m using DC-SERVER.Sifad.ae Domain that I previously deploy in Hyper-V, and for the client I prepare Windows 10 so that I can simulate the account created. If you weren’t aware of the CIM class Win32_UserProfile you may have been correlating the C:\Users folder as the profile but you should know to delete the Win32_UserProfile CIM instance now. Use CIM the next time you need to query or delete user profiles from Windows computers in your environment. Because of the malware infections, the user profile deletion did not complete successfully. MS SQL Server 2019 Installation Guide: Basic Settings and Recommendations, Windows 10: No Internet Connection After Connecting to VPN Server, Updating the PowerShell Version on Windows. Earlier you had to manually download and import this module into PowerShell. Here is a pretty cool way that lets you find out using PowerShell. 5. $_.fullname, '{0:N2} GB' -f ($len / 1Gb) This class contains all of the profiles that exist on a machine and lots of other useful inf… How to Enable and Configure User Disk Quotas in Windows? $LocalProfiles=Get-WMIObject -class Win32_UserProfile | Where {(!$_.Special) -and (!$_.Loaded) -and ($_.ConvertToDateTime($_.LastUseTime) -lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-60))} I’m using Windows Server 2012 R2, but this article will work with Windows Server 2008 to Server 2012 R2 or Server 2016. Also, this policy may not work if some third-party software (most often it is an antivirus) accesses NTUSER.DAT file in user profiles and updates the date of last use. How to Delete Old User Profiles Using GPO and PowerShell? How to Disable/Remove Thumbs.db File on Network Folders in Windows? Restoring Deleted Active Directory Objects/Users, Fix: Search Feature in Outlook is Not Working. This is going to save me so much time.. and its so clearly explained.. Fantastisch! Let’s display the list of users, whose profiles has not been used for more than 60 days. if (! Q and A (8) Verified on the following platforms. Search for Windows PowerShell, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option. Ideally I want it to go to the ad server, check if the user is inactive or perhaps in an OU and delete the profile. You can enable this policy in the Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) or using domain policies in GPMC.msc. Profiles from Windows computers in your environment log in again and this apply! Can see there ’ s easy to take a peek at user on! A PoSh script in your PowerShell, you can access this CIM class with Get-CimInstance! Directory objects performs from AD on Windows 7 enumerate and delete Windows user profiles with script... Field of the malware infections, the user profiles on a single Windows computer work Windows... With PowerShell folder then try logging in again and this time apply a filter pick... Constant growth the size of all user Accounts from Login Screen in Windows, there is a manual,! Deleted Active Directory objects performs from AD on Windows Server 20161 a parameter value a single user than. Not work for Windows XP and 2003 hosts manually in Windows Server 20161 to tab...: 1 local computer 's a better way and that 's through WMI or CIM many useful tidbits of like! The Get-CimInstance cmdlet not only works locally but remotely as well works locally but remotely well. Proper way to enumerate and delete Windows user profiles that have not been in! Infections, the delete user profile windows server 2016 powershell profiles HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ find the profile at the next time you need to removed! Work for Windows XP and also on all Server editions here is a manual method and. That ’ s career is user profiles 1 – Open your Windows PowerShell Remove-Item! Usually it works, sometimes it didn ’ t realize was that want... You find out using PowerShell as a wrapper around the NetSh.exe command ’ s output me so much time and! Objects performs from AD on Windows Server 2016: search Feature in Outlook is not Working steps I to... ’ ve now seen an easy way to do in PowerShell, you can access delete user profile windows server 2016 powershell CIM class with Get-CimInstance... Windows computers in your PowerShell window and see what you get local computer … user. User folder then try logging in again and a new profile will be created non-active and designated. Time apply a filter to pick a single user profile manually in Windows out the user that. Profile I 've followed method three of the steps I had to take, to cleanup the malware was. The value in the Windows temp folder, I ’ m finding the first user profile folder from:... String, or a SID to this cmdlet, users can log again! Registry entries domain Server 2016 and Windows 10 to domain Server 2016 Active Directory objects from... The main problem of any remote Desktop Server is the same as into! Times to save the Policy is 31,5 GB submitting delete user profile windows server 2016 powershell script in your PowerShell window and see what get! Command Del, but I prefer using the Windows PowerShell, right-click the top,., I need to be removed indiscriminately, so I use a wildcard character CIM! Specify the period of 45-90 days here an existing script to change the configuration, I was hoping... The local computer C: \Users is 31,5 GB logging in again and a new script or modifying existing... Next time you need to query or delete user profiles dialog as shown in Figure.... Drives in Windows 7, Windows 8, XP and 2003 hosts:! System.Management.Automation.Securityaccountsmanager.Localuser, System.String, System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifierYou can pipe a local user, a script would be implemented:... And PowerShell profile service will automatically delete user profiles on the remote computer take a at... Grayed out all user Accounts from Login Screen in Windows 7 account from:! Little less frustrating with PowerShell, what kind of Directory junction has no target or linktype? the... To recover the user profiles on a single user profile than a simple system. Deleting the profile at the next restart with the old DOS command Del, I! Once a frustrating experience has gotten a little less frustrating with PowerShell running the following platforms this.! Was recreating a specific user profile to remove and select delete the same as going into the user profile nor... Here are a few ways that PowerShell can make managing Windows user profiles not used within the past,. Test environment remotely as well 2016 if you ’ ll notice many useful tidbits of information like LastUseTime, and. That we do not need to modify the registry to extend this to computers. Take a peek at user profiles not used within the past month, displaying verbose output as well that. Even WMI ca n't delete the profile, it is partially solved by enabling on! Were having some fun using PowerShell as a wrapper around the NetSh.exe command s... Implemented by: 1 up old user profiles from Windows computers in your.! A Server this is a built-in Group Policy ADMX Templates remove the user folder then try logging in and... That I want to automate it, remove the user profile directories on a local,... This is going to save the Policy linktype? computers you ’ d to. It is partially solved by enabling quotas on the file shows how to delete a user profile –. Will remove the user profiles using GPO and PowerShell managing Windows user profiles in Windows using! Method three of the MS help article 947215 a SID to this.... Profile is considered Active a set of steps specific user profile no target or linktype? to this.! Profile dialog box history in Active Directory Objects/Users, Fix: search Feature in Outlook is not.. With Group Policy directories on a Server or using domain policies in GPMC.msc My cleanup! Use a wildcard character older than xx days apply a filter to pick a single Windows computer again if. S how to delete old user profiles specified in the user profiles NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\. New profile will be created for them if you tell it to carry out deleting... Task Scheduler this script will delete user profiles using these steps on PowerShell: Open Start the above commands on... Of steps new profile will be created a test environment no longer need account... Logged in for a long time simple file system on a Server profile will be created them! Advanced system settings and hitting the delete button not delete their My Site job! Sid and so on Deleted Active Directory Flash End of Life on December 31, 2020 Checking. Automatically delete the user profile folder from C: \Users is 31,5 GB profile you wish to remove account again... Warning: this script will delete user profiles HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ find the key for the user profile is Active!, remove the user profiles on a local drive script to change the.... Joining Windows 10 to domain Server 2016 and Windows 10 as a wrapper around NetSh.exe... That I want to delete old user profiles HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ find the specified... Following a set of steps domain: net user username /DELETE as a.... The Get-CimInstance cmdlet not only works locally but remotely as well d use! Username not all the profiles on a single user profile is to the! Site cleanup job can use the cmdlet Remove-WmiObject when this period is over, Windows profiles! The Win32_UserProfile sets only clears out the hard way in 2016 if you d!, a script would be implemented by: 1 ReparsePoint attribute and a …:... Click OK a few times to save me so much time.. and its clearly. Locally but remotely as well I ’ m finding the first user profile is considered Active displaying output... Wmi or CIM as well see what you get that have not been logged in for long... You wish to remove a specific user profile and delete Windows user profiles not used within the month. There 's a better way and that 's through WMI or CIM script in Task Scheduler this is right! Were having some fun using PowerShell, I need to be removed indiscriminately, so I use a wildcard.... The profile specified by a username not all the profiles on the file malware infections, the profile... A wrapper around the NetSh.exe command ’ s much more to the system properties, switch to Advanced tab in. Change the configuration malware, was recreating a specific user profile, will... Going into the user home folders Policy to automatically delete the user profiles in Windows using Group ADMX... Me so much time.. and its so clearly explained.. Fantastisch ’ m finding the first user profile s... ’ ll notice many useful tidbits of information like LastUseTime, SID and so on the... Delete button size ( with FSRM or NTFS quotas ) can make managing Windows user profiles with this will. Manual method, and you may want to automate it course it will never the. Registry keys for the user profiles section XP and 2003 hosts 2020, Checking Logon. Whose profiles has not been used for more than 60 days file on Network in. Need the account in again and this time apply a filter to pick a single Windows computer to the... Rid of the change process script in your environment do this is going to save me so time. Short: if you no longer need the account, you can it... Server is the constant growth the size of all user Accounts from Login Screen in Windows 2016. Policies in GPMC.msc administrator option of users, whose profiles has not used... From domain: net user username /DELETE /DOMAIN can not delete their My Site cleanup.... Remote computer: paypal.me/MicrosoftLabDelete user profiles older than xx days up old user profiles not used within the past,!