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I have tried to:

  • Remove a user from the Control Panel, but the C:\Users\bob folder still remains.

  • Manually deleting it works sometimes if I delete all subfolders, but some users folders do not allow me to delete:

    C:\Users\bob\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Libraries

    even if a I take ownership...

  • Deleting the the Account Unknown from System Settings following
    instructions from this post , throws the error

    Profile not deleted completely. Error - The directory is not empty.

EDIT: I probably should have mentioned that this is in a Windows 10 Home edition.

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  • The proper way s to remove the user via the "User Accounts" in the Control Panel, followed by removing the profile via System Properties -. User Profiles. If that can't delete the folder, then there's most likely a file system problem. You should make your question about the actual problem (error when removing profile) vs. asking "what's the best way to" as you're doing it "the best way". Oct 3, 2016 at 13:36
  • @Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 why not post as an answer?
    – codaamok
    Oct 3, 2016 at 13:45
  • @adampski Because it's not a very helpful answer (it doesn't help fix the user's actual problem). :) Oct 3, 2016 at 13:48
  • @Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 You are right. Account deleted via Control Panel, User Profile folder was not. Going System Properties -> User Profile prompt me the error: "Profile not deleted completely. Error - The directory is not empty". Once I restarted the computer and deleted all sub folders, the profile folder was deleted the same when I went to safe mode. Some application was using some files in the profile. That is why Control Panel or System Properties didn't delete all the files. I should edit the question now like you suggested early on.
    – salo
    Oct 3, 2016 at 21:35

2 Answers 2

1

Found the answer here

The steps:

  1. WIN-R to open the Run Window and type services.msc enter image description here
  2. Find the Windows Search service and stop it enter image description here

You may notice that the "Libraries" folder disappears from \appdata\roaming\microsoft\windows\Libraries when you do this.

  1. Delete the User folder!
  2. Right click Windows Search in the services window again and START it.
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Following is a copy of the solution How to delete domain user profile from a computer? which should work equally well on a local computer with Windows 10.

  • Open up "Control Panel | System and Security | System"
  • In the dialog click on "Advanced system settings" (requires Admin rights)
  • The "System Properties" dialog will be displayed
  • Make sure you are in the "Advanced" register
  • In the "User Profiles" section click on "Settings"
  • The "User Profiles" dialog is displayed
  • Select the account. Hit Delete.

Faster:

  • Start | Run
  • sysdm.cpl
  • switch to register "Advanced"
  • In the "User Profiles" section click on "Settings"
  • The "User Profiles" dialog is displayed
  • Select the account. Hit Delete.

If you have a greyed out button it means that the registry hive has not been released by the operating system, as pointed out by @joeqwerty in the original post.

You could always just delete the C:\Users\[ACCOUNT] directory, but that leaves some registry entries behind that have to be manually deleted.

Deleting any leftover Registry Keys

  • Open Regedit with Administrator Permissions (Runas Administrator)
  • Select the HKEY_USERS branch
  • Search for the Domain Account without the domain (e.g. login = DOMAIN\ACCOUNT then search for ACCOUNT)
  • Keep on searching until the status bar shows Computer\HKEY_USERS\[SID]\Software\Microsoft\Windwos\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
  • There should be a large list of your ACCOUNTs folders e.g. C:\Users\ACCOUNT\Desktop

You are in the right HKEY_USERS\[SID]\Software\Microsoft\Windwos\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders branch if the ACCOUNT in "Shell Folders" matches the ACCOUNT you just manually deleted form the C:\Users\[ACCOUNT] directory. This branch [SID] can be exported and/or deleted to clean up the last of the user profile.

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  • 1
    You should properly quote and cite the relevant information, even if your linking to, a serverfault answer. If you just want to point to the answer itself, you should suggest the solution, in a comment instead.
    – Ramhound
    Oct 3, 2016 at 14:56

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