Windows – Should I be concerned with deleting a user account

user-accountsuser-profileswindows xp

Somehow a user account got corrupted so following advice, I created a new user account. I now want to delete the old user account but I am a little nervous. A few main points:

  1. Both the new and old account point my documents to the same folder on another drive so I want to make sure that when I delete the old user account, it doesn't delete the my documents folder (as the new account is using it as well.

  2. I see a number of directories under C: \Documents and Settings[Old User Id], that take up almost 3GB of space, such as:

    • C: \Documents and Settings\[Old User Id]\Local Settings
    • C: \Documents and Settings\[Old User Id]\Application Data

For example: I have: C: \Documents and Settings\[Old User Id]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office

When I delete that, is that going to mess up my Office install?

Another one that is concerning me is: C: \Documents and Settings\[Old User Id]\Local Settings\Temp\Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1_10.0.40219

Any advice would be appreciated on what I need to worry about?

NOTE: the old account IS an Administrator

Best Answer

1.Both the new and old account point my documents to the same folder on another drive so i want to make sure that when i delete the old user account, it doesn't delete the my documents folder (as the new account is using it as well.

If it were a network drive, it would not touch the documents in "My documents", but I would make a backup of those just in case no matter where they are.

2.I see a number of directories under C:\Documents and Settings[Old User Id], that take up almost 3GB of space, such as: •C:\Documents and Settings[Old User Id]\Local Settings •C:\Documents and Settings[Old User Id]\Application Data

No harm deleting this. Application settings are things like a user's preferences, which can be reset, and will be recreated when the application is opened again for the first time. This has no effect on the actual install. I would still use windirstat to look at what I was deleting since it is so large. I suspect a lot is temp files and Internet cache.

for example: i have: C:\Documents and Settings[Old User Id]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Office

when i delete that, is that going to mess up my Office install ?

Again, this is just a user's personal settings, and such...it will be recreated.

another one that is concerning me is: C:\Documents and Settings[Old User Id]\Local Settings\Temp\Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1_10.0.40219

This temp directory can be emptied at any time. That was just a service pack that was installed to another location. That file is no longer used.

Related Question