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Remove a Profile in W2K

I?m operating a W2K/NTFS computer as part of a peer-to-peer network.  I am the administrator.  However, usually I logon to my Tony (power user) account rather than to the Administrator account.

I wanted to copy the settings in my Tony profile over to the Administrator?s profile.  Temporarily, I assigned Tony to the administrator?s group.  My intention was to overwrite the Administrator?s profile by copying Tony and specifying Adminstrator as the target.

I went into Control Panel / System / User Profiles.  The dialogue box showed ComputerName\Administrator and ComputerName\Tony.  I selected Tony and hit the Copy To button.  Where it asked for a destination, instead of specifying C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator, I absent-mindedly typed ComputerName\Administrator.  As a result, W2K somehow put out a folder named C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Mapi\1033\NT\ComputerName\Administrator.  I want to remove this second Administrator profile.

My understanding is that the proper way to remove a profile is to go to System Properties / User Profiles and delete the profile from there; so that it is removed from the registry.  However, if I go to System Properties / User Profiles, the second Administrator profile obviously doesn?t appear.  What?s the best way to remove it?

Also, what should I have done in the first place?  Should I have just copied individual sub-folders from the Tony folder to the Administrator folder?
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Doctor Tony,

For system-policy files, the best tool I?ve come across is Tools4ever?s Policy Template Editor. It's a must-have utility for creating custom .adm policy template files that contain custom Registry settings (the files from which .pol system-policy files are created). You can use Policy Template Editor?s GUI to create per-machine or per-user policies?a much easier process than creating and editing the .adm files manually.

Another handy resource for creating custom system-policy files is the NT Zero Administration Kit (ZAK), which includes several excellent enhanced and custom .adm files for the OS and for particular applications. Using the ZAK?s templates files, you can build a much more comprehensive system-policy file than you can with NT?s default templates (i.e., winnt.adm and common.adm).

As for user profiles, you?ll unfortunately find a dearth of profile-management utilities for NT. In fact, I?ve long felt that third-party utility vendors have all but ignored user profiles. The Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Resource Kit includes one profile-management utility, delprof.exe, a command-line tool that helps with the deletion of a machine?s unused user profiles. (For more information about Delprof, see Mark Minasi, This Old Resource Kit, ?DELPROF,? July 1998.)

Unfortunately, Delprof represents the extent of Microsoft?s built-in user-profile-management tools. Microsoft never shipped an NT 4.0-updated version of the handy User Profile Editor utility (upedit.exe) that shipped with the NT 3.5x resource kits. However, both Win2K and NT 4.0 support some techniques that might help you create your user profiles.

To create a master (or template) user profile, you simply need to create a user account for that profile, then log on as the template user. After you configure the profile to your liking?including applications and per-user Registry settings for the desktop?you can then use the Control Panel System applet?s User Profile tab to copy that profile to a different location. This dialog box also lets you assign permissions for the users or groups that will use a particular user profile. If you?d rather not create a template or master version from scratch, you can copy a user profile by simply copying an actual user?s existing profile (from a machine that holds the desired version of the user?s profile). However, if you use this method, you need to ensure that this profile contains no sensitive data that might compromise security or user privacy.

Dennis
Also take a look at these :
there are some new tools that may help determine your problem.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/downloads/tools/default.asp   utilities and downloads
http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/tools/default.asp resource kit tools

I hope this helps !
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doctortony

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I think the admonition not to fool with the original administrator account is good advice.  I do feel a little bit uncomfortable with "not worrying about the registry."  But the machine is functioning fine, so that's probably good advice also.  Thanks.