Home / server / Questions / 307895
In Process
Dean
Asked: 2011-09-04 07:37:52 +0800 CST

Windows 2003 mandatory profile changes reverted only after workstation restarts

  • 772

I created a roaming mandatory profile, logged in as the user with the mandatory profile and made some changes to test it.

After I logged off and logged in again as the user, I saw that the changes were not reverted back to the mandatory profile. The profile on the server was not altered.

I logged in as the administrator and tried to delete the profile, but when viewing it through User Profiles dialog in System Properties I am unable to make changes to it, as if the user is still logged in.

Fast User Switching service is set to 'Manual' and isn't running.

I reset the workstation and logged it as the user with the mandatory profile and the changes reverted back as supposed.

Why is the profile locked even when the user is not logged in?

windows-server-2003 user-profile

1 Answers

  1. There are times when Windows doesn't unload the user registry hive when a user logs off, therefore the profile is still in use and can't be deleted. In those cases you can:

    1. Reboot the workstation OR

    2. Install the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service on the server.

    In W2K8, the User Profile service handles this and is built in to the OS.

    • 2