User Profiles Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter Norm
  • Start date Start date
N

Norm

I have been experiencing continuing problems on my computer
(s) at work with occasional hangs during boot-up, very
lengthy boot up and shutdowns, as well as getting kicked
off the network at random times during the day, for
unknown reasons.
This has been going on for several years, with 3 different
computers, the last 2 having been reformatted with a clean
OS installation.
I admit I tend to give the machine a good daily workout
with AutoCAD, Excel, Word, and WinAmp.
The system administrator has never been able to resolve
this problem (which also affects others randomly as well).

Anyway, during a recent viewing of my office system (a 2.4
Gb CPU with Windows 2000) after another hangup, the
administrator was aghast that my user profile was over 2MB
while other profiles are typically below 300,000Kb. The
admin stated the huge profile size, as well as the slow
boot and shutdown, was because the 'My Documents' folder
was full of files (primarily 2Gb of Music and about 400K
of office documents), there are "so many" desktop Icons
(about 20), a desktop-picture at about 1.2 Mb size
running, "all the customized files" (only 1 customized:
AutoCAD), the typical office installed apps running in the
lower right corner (about 6), and "all those cookies"
(actually NONE because I have no internet connection other
than e-mail).

At home however, I have close to 50 programs installed
most geared towards graphics and A/V (nearly 12 of which
automatically load at start up), 50 desktop Icons, over
35Gb of Multimedia files, loads of documents (260 Mb) in
the My Documents folder, cookies and internet related
information across 2 large hard drives running under Win
2000 Pro. I even have the same screen saver/picture
running that I had at work and AutoCAD customized exactly
the same way - all with no performance decrease or
problems with boot up or shutdown on a 1.5 Ghz P4 CPU. My
home profile is less than 280,000K.

The admin does not want to create another profile (this
was already done for everyone in the office when the
server was updated). Presently there are 6 profiles on my
machine: 3 for me and 3 for the administrator. Apparently
1 for each of us for the local machine and 1 each for the
new and the old networks. Other people just have 1 or 2.

Is there a way to view the contents of the user profile at
my office and see just what is causing the bloat and can
it be edited (by the administrator)?
 
Hello Norm,

You can view User Profiles in Windows 2000 and XP by going to C:\Documents
and Settings\Your profile.

Alternately when you are logged on you can type a period (.) in the run line
and press OK. This will automatically take you to the root of your currently
used profile.

Perhaps at work you have roaming profiles enabled? If so you would be
syncing this profile at logon with the locally stored profile. At log off
you would be doing the same. This may take some time.

Also for general slow boot and stability issues you may wish to use the
MSCONFIG utility to disable 3rd party services and start up programs.

You can obtain Msconfig.exe from a Windows XP computer, copy the file to the
Winnt directory on your Windows 2000 machine. This utility works fine with
Windows 2000.

Here is some more information on how to use MSconfig:


310353 How to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows XP
http://kb/article.asp?id=Q310353

Buz Brodin
MCSE NT4 / Win2K
Microsoft Enterprise Domain Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "as is" with no warranties and confers no rights.

Please do not send e-mail directly to this alias. This alias is for
newsgroup purposes only.
 
Back
Top