Deleting a user profile on Windows 11
What's in the box?
To delete a user profile on Windows 11, or on an older version such as Windows 10, or even Windows Server, you need to follow a specific procedure. If you delete the user's folder directly in " C:\Users "(or C:\Users"), you won't delete the profile correctly: it will be partially deleted, resulting in a temporary profile if you reuse this account on your computer.
Here's an example, where we have the "tutobox" folder corresponding to a user with this login. The "Public" folder should not be deleted, as it is the public profile for all users of the machine.
1. Easily delete a user profile
Follow the procedure below to delete a user profile. Log on to the machine Windows 11 with an administrator account, and a different account from the one you wish to delete. Open the Start menu to open the " Parameters" .
In the section " System" click on " System information "in the list. As soon as this is done, another window opens: click on " ". Advanced system settings" . This will open another window, which is the same as the one we had on Windows 10, Windows 7, etc...
Then, still within Advanced system settings" you must click on " Parameters "just below User profile" . Another window will open listing all the user profiles stored on the machine.
For delete a user profile in Windows 11select it from the list, then click on the " " button. Delete" . Please note that deleting a profile deletes all data (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc.), all application configuration, etc., i.e. all local data for this session.
Note If the Delete If "Delete" is grayed out, you'll need to restart Windows for it to be accessible. Generally, this is because the session you wish to delete is loaded in memory (session open since last startup).
A confirmation window will appear, with the question " Do you really want to delete the user profile....?" click on " Yes "to confirm. The Windows system will work to delete this user's session. Now you know how to delete a user profile!
2. What information is deleted?
Whether it's a local account or an account associated with a directory, such as Active Directory, the account itself is not deleted. This means that you can reopen a new session with this account, on the same computer, unless you delete the user account in addition to deleting the profile.
If you're wondering what exactly the action we've just performed does, well, it deletes the user's folder in "C:\Users". For example, for the user "tutobox", this will delete the folder " C:\Users\tutobox "and everything it contains. As I said earlier, this will delete the account data.
In addition, and this is why you don't just have to manually delete the folder in " C:\Users" This operation deletes information from the Windows Registry. There is a lot of configuration information in the Windows Registry... and user profiles are listed there:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileListThis is where you'll find one registry key per user profile loaded on the local machine. When you delete a profile, Windows also sorts the information there. In other words, if you delete only in "C:\Users", you delete only part of the information.
To manually delete a user profile on Windows 11 (or any other version of Windows), I encourage you to use this method. It's very simple to apply, so it would be a pity not to.
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