Can I delete user directory after deleting user?

Question

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 /DELETE

When 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

Solution 1

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.

Solution 2

There is right way to complete delete user profile:

1. Open Control Panel --> System --> Advanced system settings (Alternate way: Type “sysdm.cpl” on Windows Run and press enter)
2. Then on "Advanced" tab find "User Profiles" and press Settings.
3. Deleted user's profile is displayed as "Account Unknown" - delete it.

It must work in Win Home too.

Solution 3

If 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.

Comments

[ShadowZzz]

It is likely that the user is deleted from the system, but the directory is left behind to protect user data from being deleted. However, you can manually delete the directory just like you delete any other folder. As long as you have access to an Admin account, this should not be difficult.

[Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style]

I would suggest deleting profiles from the System Properties --> Advanced --> select profile to remove, and then select Delete rather than deleting those manually... This will also clear out applicable registry keys that correlate to the user profile. Otherwise if you ever recreate a new user account on this same machine with the same username, you'll have issues with temporary profiles, need to manually delete applicable registry keys, etc. Just use the System Properties --> Advanced --> select profile to remove, and then select Delete.... and you'll be all set moving forward.

[Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style]

To clarify as I didn't put the explicit full path in from System Properties.... see here for full detail and screen shots.... technig.com/remove-user-profile-correctly. You could run the net user username /DELETE to do that the way you do it there and then from the post from the link in this comment go to the How to Remove User Profile in Windows 10? and do the next steps from there that I mentioned.

[ThatRandomGuy]

I want you to know that even though I selected someone else's answer--Ideally, I would have also selected yours. I didn't specify it directly, but I wanted a way to do this through the GUI which is how you laid it out for me in your response. I gladly appreciate the information. Thank-you.

[ThatRandomGuy]

Is there a reason why it wouldn't delete the empty ones with a "force" option?

[Peter Vlaar]

PowerShell might do it, cmd didn't.

[Kaushik Shankar]

Although this answer has but one vote—and sounds ridiculous—this actually worked for me for no good reason! Thanks for posting the answer.