-Recurse [<SwitchParameter>]
        Deletes the items in the specified locations and in all child items of the locations.

        The Recurse parameter in this cmdlet does not work properly.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mark Minasi

I don't know PS well enough to answer the question, but I DO know that you can run regular old "internal" CLI tools in Powershell by prefixing them with "cmd /c" (I think that's right), so why not just use

rd /s /q <name of folder>

It would delete the folder and any files/subfolders.

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From good old batch, everything works fine.


@echo off

set LocalProfile="\\%2\c$\Users\%1"
echo Deleting profile directory [%LocalProfile%]
rd /s /q %LocalProfile%

rd c:\DirectoryName -rec -for

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "C:\DirectoryName"

quote:

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Originally posted by jmarquart

Here are two ways to do this natively from powershell:

rd c:\DirectoryName -rec -for

or

Remove-Item -Recurse -Force "C:\DirectoryName"

sixdoubleo - I'm having the same problems as well. I get path to long errors and problems with certain files in the profile. The above seems to work well with non-profile directories, but does not work with profile directories.

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quote:

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Originally posted by lady_mcse

Um, so I have a question ... why would you want to?

By that I mean that in my days of supporting NT\2000\XP, I always found that BAD things happen when you just try to yank the user profile data.

...
...

So my own "best practice" was always to use the System Properties to review the profiles, and do the delete from that interface. That would guarantee that the OS was handling all the deleting and it almost always worked. Sometimes one would seem to be not deleteable, but my rusty brain isn't remembering how I'd fix it.
Here's another article that kind of supports what I'm saying ... reasons you don't want to just manually rip the supporting files out out from underneath the profile, leaving all the registry bits in place.
http://www.sepago.de/helge/2008/10/16/deleting-a-local-user-profile-not-as-easy-as-one-might-assume/

So where does this get us? Me, miss know-very-little-about-powershell, is wondering if there's actually a command that accomplishes the same thing that Delprof used to - delete the files AND the registry bits.

Guess I'm giving more questions than answers. :-)

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quote:

---

-Recurse [<SwitchParameter>]
Deletes the items in the specified locations and in all child items of
the locations.

The Recurse parameter in this cmdlet does not work properly.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Rambler

Might have something to do with the fact that the -recurse parameter is not working properly - as is stated in the help. Actually this bug has been around since v1, but MS didn't bother to fix it for some reason.

quote:

---

-Recurse [<SwitchParameter>]
Deletes the items in the specified locations and in all child items of
the locations.

The Recurse parameter in this cmdlet does not work properly.

---

More at https://connect.microsoft.com/PowerShell/feedback/details/549039/remove-item-recurse-does-not-work-properly-is-faulty (+suggested workaround).

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  Get-Help Remove-Item -Parameter Recurse

quote:

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Originally posted by jmarquart

I agree with lady_mcse - just deleting the user profile directory like a regular directory is not a good idea.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Playwell

What's wrong with using a simple tool like delprof?

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quote:

---

Originally posted by jmarquart

Anyway found the following link on one way to delete user profiles using Powershell (and it works well):

Powershell: Script to delete Windows User Profiles on Windows 7/Windows 2008 R2

http://techibee.com/powershell/powershell-script-to-delete-windows-user-profiles-on-windows-7windows-2008-r2/1556

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param ($strComputer, $strUser, $strOpMode)


If  (($strComputer -eq "") -or ($strUser -eq ""))
	{
	Write-Host 
	Write-Host 
	Write-Host "ClearLocalProfile - Deletes cached local profile directory from a computer and clears the reference from the registry"
	Write-Host 
	Write-Host "Usage: .\ClearLocalProfile.ps1 <Computer> <UserID>"
	Write-Host
	Write-Host "ERROR: Incorrect number of arguments."
	Exit 1
	}


$strLocalProfile = "\\$strComputer\c$\Users\$strUser"
$strLocalProfileZ = "\\$strComputer\c$\Users\z$strUser"

If ($strOpMode -eq "DELETE") {	Write-Host "Deleting local profile directory from computer $strComputer"
								& cmd.exe /c RD /S /Q $strLocalProfile 	}
								
Else {							
                  if (Test-Path -path $strLocalProfile) {
				Write-Host "Renaming local profile directory to $strLocalProfileZ"
				Rename-Item -Path $strLocalProfile -NewName $strLocalProfileZ }
		}

$strRegBase = "SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows NT\\CurrentVersion\\ProfileList"
$objReg = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey("LocalMachine", $strComputer)
$regKey=$objReg.OpenSubKey($strRegBase)           
$regKey.GetSubKeyNames() | foreach { 	$regSubKey = $objReg.OpenSubKey("$strRegBase\\$_")
					$strProfilePath = $regSubKey.GetValue("ProfileImagePath") 								                 
                                        $strProfileUserName = $strProfilePath.Split("\")[-1]
						If (($strProfileUserName -eq $strUser) -or
				  		    ($strProfileUserName -eq "TEMP") -or
						    ($strProfileUserName -eq "$strUser.TEMP"))
						      { Write-Host "Deleting Key : $regSubKey"
							$objReg.DeleteSubKeyTree("$strRegBase\\$_") }
									}

quote:

---

Originally posted by JSCLMEDAVE

You know, with 10 Write-Host you just killed 10 puppies... <g>

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quote:

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Originally posted by JSCLMEDAVE

I wish I had time to make up some shirts for this years Forum Meeting (just to see Don's face) to read -

Write-Host "Don Told Us Too"

2012 Scripting Games Commentary: STOP USING WRITE-HOST!
http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/donjones/archive/2012/04/06/2012-scripting-games-commentary-stop-using-write-host.aspx

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