Can I delete user directory after deleting user?
The reason I ask is because I recently made the mistake of installing Oracle 12c on my sub-performance laptop. Noticing the excessive amount of resources this added up to on startup, I decided to uninstall it.
What I failed to see through, however, was the fact that it created a new Windows user account in order for the initial installation to work out. In my case, it was mandatory because I only had an administrator account and I didn't see the need to use the built-in account. So, after failing to successfully install 12c twice, I wound up creating not just one, but two Windows user accounts. This had to do with something in regards to how Oracle sets up the Oracle Home business and whatnot, but I have no idea what any of that detailed, so I just went ahead and did it.
After uninstalling what I could in regards to Oracle and the database, I decided the next thing to do would be to remove the created users.
Having Windows 10 Home installed, I couldn't use the local users & groups view/tool to delete these from the GUI. SO, I did the next best thing and Googled a solution. In my case, I used the following command:
net user username /DELETEWhen I executed the command, the console gave the response of having successfully deleted the account for both accounts specified.
To verify that this had worked, I went to the users directory located in %SYSTEMROOT%/Users/ and came to find that the user directories were still there.
What does this mean and if I should delete them, will anything bad happen?
Can I even delete these directories?
Regards,
--T.R.G
33 Answers
Yes, you can delete the left over user account folder and nothing will happen. Windows leaves it to protect the data of the old user. If you delete a user account from the control panel, it asks whether you want to keep the personal files of the user or not.
So next time when you use command prompt to delete a user account, I suggest that you run
net user username /delete
rm -r C:\Users\username
Also, as @Homey_D_Clown_IT mentioned, the best way of deleting a user account is outlined here else new user accounts with the same name may have problems.
0There is right way to complete delete user profile:
- Open Control Panel --> System --> Advanced system settings (Alternate way: Type “sysdm.cpl” on Windows Run and press enter)
- Then on "Advanced" tab find "User Profiles" and press Settings.
- Deleted user's profile is displayed as "Account Unknown" - delete it.
It must work in Win Home too.
1If either of these don't work and the folder is still there. Just browse into it and start deleting the lowest level folder, go one up delete, one up, delete rinse repeat.
I needed that to get rid of the empty folders.
3
