USER.DAT

[vanwicklin]

How do you get into the user.dat file and delete it in Windows XP Pro?

 

[soaplover]

It's located under C:\Documents and Settings\"account name"

it is hidden so in explorer point to
tools - folder options - view
and select "show hidden files and folders" .

Log in as another user , go into C:\Documents and Settings\"user name"
And you will see the user.dat file for that user .

//soaplover

 

[colin81]

I think its ntuser.dat in winxp

 

[soaplover]

Thats right colin , sorry i didn't se that vanwicklin.
C:\Documents and Settings\user name\ntuser.dat
Subsritute "user name" with your user account of course.
That's the whole path..


//Regards Soaplover

 

[wolluf]

and if you delete it you will wreck that user's profile...

 

[soaplover]

oh yes ,bye bye settings dialups etc.etc. ,all gone .Buildt up fresh . But guess van is aware of that .

//Regards Soaplover

 

[tahilg]

On my WinXPP system I have both ntuser.dat and UsrClass.dat (not user.dat) at several places under Documents and Settings. I have seen both in Windows Explorer. I was also able to backup everything on my PC using Windows Backup with volume shadow copying enabled. But I could not restore the UsrClass.dat files, along with three or four other files, because they were in use by Windows. They must contain the Add/Remove Programs list because after the restore it was empty. It was as if no programs had been installed and I could not run any of them.

I cannot open/copy/rename any of the ntuser.dat and the UsrClass.dat files in Windows. Maybe I can if I boot into DOS mode.

Gunny

 

[soaplover]

They are in use by windows because you are logged in as that user .
Create a new account , or login as local admin .
Then if you want del the whole C:\Documents and Settings\user
folder.

//Regards Soaplover

 

[bcastner]

They do not contain the add/remove program list.
That list is in the registry.

You did not backup the registry.

 

[tahilg]

I backed up and restored the entire C: drive. Would that not include the registry file?

The restore report said it failed to restore six files. Three of them were .EVT files the contents of which are, I would think, what you can see in the Event Viewer. One was a configuration management file and two were UsrClass.dat files.

I am now thinking that maybe I should have rebooted after the restore. I don't think I did that. Maybe the registry file was restored to disk but was not loaded into memory yet. What do you think?

Gunny