Deletion of old user account files.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve Mitchell
  • Start date Start date
S

Steve Mitchell

I'm trying to clean up a friends PC and have a problem I've not encountered
before.

There used to be an account called 'Dan' which has now been deleted, however
when deleting the account she said no to deleting all the files for that
account.

Consequently, although the User 'Dan' has gone from the log in menu there is
still an entry in ''C:/Documents and Settings''.

This refuses to allow me to delete it, saying that the folder contains
system files that windows requires. Many of the files were tagged with the
''read only'' attribute, so I tried changing the folder ''Dan to remove that
and clicked ''yes'' to make the same changes to all sub folders and files.
This appears to have removed the ''read only'' attributes, but I'm still
unable to delete the whole folder.

Any ideas how I get rid of all of this files and get the 1Gb of disk back?


TIA

Steve
 
Hi Steve,

Go to the command prompt (Start > Run > cmd) change directory (cd and
...) to Documents and Settings.
Open Task manager (Ctrl + Alt + Del) close explorer.exe
From the command prompt type:
rd Dan /s

On Task Manager, open a new task --> Explorer.exe

If still no joy, try to delete it from the Recovery console, using
set AllowAllPaths = TRUE
(for this you must have a snap-in in Windows XP Pro, see article)
and
rd Dan /s

310497 - HOW TO: Add More Power to Recovery Console By Using Group
Policy in Windows XP Professional
This step-by-step article describes how to use Group Policy to add
more power to the Recovery Console. Windows XP provides a Group Policy
that lets you add power to the commands that are available in the
Recovery Console. Under normal conditions, the...
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310497


Good luck
 
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