Windows – Local & LocalLow folders getting copied into roaming profile on Windows 10

roaming-profileswindows 10

Existing Windows 7/8.1 environment with Windows 2012 domain controller. Domain accounts configured to use roaming profiles. Works fine on existing clients copying just the "Roaming" sub-folder under AppData to the server. Specifically Local and LocalLow don't roam which has always been the case with Windows.

New Windows 10 Pro VM built and when the VM is restarted – causing the user to log off – it's copying all three sub-folders Roaming, Local & LocalLow to the roaming profile. Given that many apps store lots of temporary files & caches in Local & LocalLow, this behaviour really slows down log off. It also significantly increases the size of the roaming profile on the server.

Any ideas? I know that Windows 10 introduces the new v5 profile folder – which is where the three folders are ending up. Any references to anything in Windows 10 re: changes to the roaming profile system? All I can find is stuff about the new v5 profile.

Best Answer

Update (2015/09/02): I still see this happening intermittently, though much less frequently after installing the KBs listed below. Per this Microsoft support thread, this is a known issue with unclear cause.

It looks like this was solved by either KB3081438 or KB3081444.

I saw this happening a number of times on Windows 10, where Local and LocalLow folders were synced to %USERNAME%.v5. Nothing seemed to solve this -- including manually excluding those folders by updating [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

Now -- and after those two cumulative KBs rolled out -- it looks like Local & LocalLow are no longer copied to roaming profile (and are removed if present).

Related Question