Exclude certain directories from roaming profiles in Windows NT

by TechRepublic Staff | Mar 23, 2005 8:00:00 AM

Tags: TechRepublic Staff, Microsoft Windows NT, Microsoft Windows

Takeaway: While roaming profiles ensure that users can access their personal settings from multiple machines, they can easily grow in size, resulting in sluggish logons. Learn two ways you can control the size of roaming profiles in Windows NT.

Roaming profiles ensure that users can access their personal settings no matter what machine they log on to. But these profiles can grow over time and consequently make logons very slow.

However, you can use Windows NT's ExcludeProfileDirs registry setting to exclude certain directories from replication, which can help control the size of user profiles. Follow these steps:

1. Start the Registry Editor. (Go to Start | Run, and type regedt32.exe.)
2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.
3. From the Edit menu, select New | String Value.
4. Enter ExcludeProfileDirs, and press [Enter].
5. Double-click the new value, and enter the relevant areas to exclude, separating them by semicolons (for example, Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook; Temporary Internet Files; Personal).
6. Close the Registry Editor, and restart the system.

You can also exclude certain directories from roaming profiles by creating a system policy. Follow these steps:

1. Start the System Policy Editor, and load the Common.adm and Winnt.adm templates.
2. Create a new policy.
3. Double-click Default User.
4. Expand Windows NT User Profiles.
5. Select Exclude Directories In Roaming Profile.
6. In the data box, enter the names of the directories you want to exclude.

Note: Editing the registry is risky, so be sure you have a verified backup before making any changes.