server 2008 profile reset

 Server  Comments Off
Sep 222011
 

Chances are, if you happen to work within the a Server 2008 or R2 environment and have ever needed to reset a profile you have seen the following error message. “The User Profile Service service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.”

Unlike the good ol’ days in Server 2003 where you could just at will delete profiles from “c:\documents and settings” its now not a great idea to purge any profiles in 2008 (“c:\users”) without properly doing it. I help is needed, here are several ways to properly delete profiles in Server 2008, R2, and beyond.

  • [GUI Profile Reset]
    • Start > Run > type in ‘control’ and click on OK
    • Locate the “system” icon and double click to open.
    • Locate “Advanced system settings” on the left hand side and open.
    • Click on “Settings” under “User Profiles” in the “Advanced” tab.
    • Locate the profile you want to reset and click on “Delete” to purge the profile.
  • [Manual profile deletion]
    • Start > Run > type in ‘c:\users’ and click on OK
    • Make sure the user is no longer on the server. Then locate the profile and delete.
    • Next we need to open the registry > Start > Run > type in ‘regedit’ and click on OK
      • Expand > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
      • Expand > SOFTWARE
      • Expand > Microsoft
      • Expand > Windows NT
      • Expand > CurrentVersion
      • Expand > ProfileList
    • Locate the users SID and delete. There is a very good chance you will see the key ending in ‘.bak’.
    • To confirm you have selected the proper profile click on the key and read the ‘ProfileImagePath’ [REG_Expand_SZ]. You will see the users path, if the profile name matches what you deleted in “c:\Users\”, you will have a match.

 

 Posted by T.Mims at 1:56 pm  Tagged with: , ,

adobe reader 9.4

 Server, XenApp  Comments Off
Sep 112011
 

Seriously Adobe? What’s going on here, and why do I find myself updating servers with your products more than Microsoft? From frequent flash updates to acrobat reader vulnerabilities out the wazoo.  I’m now more convinced your product has more holes in it than ever before. Heck, I don’t blame iOS from prohibiting any flash content on their devices and as far as I’m concerned – android can have it simply because it’s as dodgy and spotty as you are. I guess it’s a perfect marriage.

This last issue is probably more annoying than before. For whatever reason – adobe inserts a replica of itself on every users profile on several terminal servers which ultimately consumes all available hard drive space on c:\.

  1. What’s going on here?
  2. a user accesses a citrix server either via a published application or by directly accessing the terminal server via mstsc or a published desktop.
  3. the adobe folder gets copied to the users profile – c:\documents and settings\local settings\adobe\reader 9.4\setup files\ etc… That’s fine but what’s completely annoying is this folder is over 109 MB in size! And when you multiply that by 1000 and factor in roaming profiles where they exist – you have huge issues!.  Huge issues on profile servers and all over the place!
  4. the source of this issue comes from c:\documents and settings\default user\local settings\application data\adobe\reader 9.4\setup files.
  5. Why is this installation even copying anything to the default user folder? is this a product of a moron system administrator not elevating the install correctly? Or perhaps a botched CM/HPSA effort? I’d say yes to both.
  6. How do you fix this? It’s simple – delete from c:\documents and settings\default user\local settings\application data\adobe, then clear it from every loaded profile on your server and profile shares!
  7. Thanks Adobe! Thanks a lot!
 Posted by T.Mims at 10:34 pm  Tagged with: , , , ,
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