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Remove Administrator

I am trying to remove an administrator profile (e.g. joeadm ) off of a Windows 2003 server. I have tried logging in as a domain administrator as well as a local administrator. When I navigate to user profiles, I can see the profile in the list. However when I highlight it to remove it, "delete" will not highlight. I cannot find a trend here, as I am able to highlight other admin names ( e.g. bobadm ) and it highlights the "delete" button. Please tell me how to remove this user profile, as I am getting error logs with his account name in them ( e.g. 1030, 1060, other kerbos/LDAP issues ).

Thanks,

C

cmoerbe

ASKER

By the way, I was considering creating a new generic account, then using the copy to function, and just copy that profile over the admin profile. This is in an attempt to "dumb down" the admin accounts rights and then giving me the ability to delete it. Its just a shot in the dark, but I didnt want to do it until I was able to bounce some other ideas off of the problem.

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Pber

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Pber

I failed to mention in my previous post to delete the key corresponding to the SID of the profile you wish to delete. You can also just rename the key as well as the profile name under Documents and Settings just so you have backup. This way the user will get a new profile and you can go back if needed.

cmoerbe

ASKER

I tried to delete the user from Documents and Settings already, but it keeps giving the error message " Cannot delete NTUSER.DAT: It is being used by another person or program." However, I know that the user is not logged in or using any portion of that server. I also checked shared folders - sessions - and verified that it wasnt using his profile behind the scenes. Should I go with the registry change first, and then try to delete it?

Pber

Reboot the box if you can and then delete the profile right away. Try connecting to the machine remotely (i.e. \\machine\c$) and deleting it that way as well.

cmoerbe

ASKER

Well its a production server, so I will have to wait until after hours to try that approach.
Also I cannot UNC to the C$. It wont allow access, for security reasons. I think maby starting in safe mode might help, but again that will have to wait until non-business hours.

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Pber

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cmoerbe

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I found out what the problem was. There was a disconnected remote session sitting in terminal services manager. (I dont know why I didnt think about that earlier ) It kept trying to reconnect to the session. I went into term serv mgr, removed the disconnected session, and then it allowed me to go in and delete both profiles. ( joeadm and joeadm.domain ). I do appreciate your reply though, and will use that as another tool if I were to run into this type of problem again.

Thanks!

C