How to delete domain user profile from a computer?

Solution 1:

Method 1 (easy and safe)

• 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.

Method 2 (slight variation of method 1)

• 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.

The greyed out button possibly means that the registry hive has not been released by the operating system, as pointed out by @joeqwerty in the comments.

Method 3 (manual and prone to errors)

Delete the C:\Users\[ACCOUNT] directory. That leaves some registry entries behind that have to be manually deleted as follows.

• 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.

Solution 2:

In case if user profile folder is/was deleted manually, you need to make changes to registry

1. Open "regedit.exe"

2. Navigate to "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList"

3. Click the sub-key that corresponds with the profile you deleted and right click and delete it.

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Solution 3:

The safest method is as follows. (Written on Windows 7, but applicable to XP onwards)

• Go to Start
• Right click "Computer and select Properties
• Select Advanced System Settings [Skip this step on XP]
• Choose the Advanced Tab
• Under User Profiles, select Settings (NB: This may take some time to enumerate)
• Select the username you wish to delete and select Delete

This will remove any profile data on the local machine. Do not be tempted to just delete the profile directory as this will leave registry entries behind that will cause problems on Vista onwards.

I also recommend "RemProf" from the excellent Ctrl-Alt-Del TS Util Pack. Ignore that the pack is terminal services centric, the utility works fine on desktop editions. Just note the different versions for XP/2003 and Vista/7/2008/R2

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Solution 4:

If the account is grayed out, then the account has Windows services or scheduled tasks tied to it. You will need to change the account on these services or task. Once done you will have to re-boot the PC and then it will allow you to delete the profile.