multiple 'instances' of the same admin account in WinXP

So I set up my new netbook according to the excellent help I received in this thread, and have now run into another problem...

Because this is one of those newer solid-state hard drives, it is a bit limited on the storage capacity (only 16gb). I didn't see that as a deal-breaker, because I have a 250gb external USB hard drive, a desktop w/ 270gb across 2 drives, and a "work" laptop w/ a 50gb hdd, so it's not like I was going to be storing a lot of crap on it...

That small hard drive size *still* turned out to be an issue because of some pre-installed back-up software (Roxio's BackOnTrack which, by the way, is the devil). It ate up all of my free hard drive space in no time flat and, before I knew what was happening, I was down to 238mb (that is not a typo) free on the whole computer.

I turned the netbook on and selected my admin account; during the load, it gave me some kind of error msg that there was insufficient space to load my profile, but it went ahead and loaded it anyway (which I thought was weird, but was the least of my worries while I was trying to troubleshoot this). I eventually uninstalled the BackOnTrack software and reclaimed 6gb (that is not a typo either).

So anyway, here's my problem...

When someone boots up the computer, they are presented with four user profiles:

• admin33zgb (my admin account, w/ admin privs)
• shooter (my "regular" account, w/ admin privs)
• wife (my wife's "regular" account, w/ admin privs)
• guest (guest account activated, for other ppl to use)

This is as I want it, and if this is how things actually were, all would be right w/ the world.

Alas, when one actually peers beneath the surface, this is what they see:

• C:\Documents and Settings\admin33zgb
• C:\Documents and Settings\admin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP
• C:\Documents and Settings\admin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP.000
• C:\Documents and Settings\admin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP.001
• C:\Documents and Settings\admin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP.002
• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users
• C:\Documents and Settings\shooter
• C:\Documents and Settings\wife
• C:\Documents and Settings\TEMP

Did I mention that "SHOOTERNETBOOKHP" just so happens to be the computer name I chose during setup?

As you can see, I actually have five "admin33zgb" accounts! My hypothesis is that they were created when I was told there was insufficient space to load my profile.

I would like to get back to only one "admin33zgb" account/profile, as it should be, but I'm not clear on the best way to go about this.

If the "earlier" profiles had actually been corrupted, I could completely understand that they couldn't be saved/salvaged, but since they weren't, can I save/salvage the original?

Could I just delete the "later" profiles, which don't really have any data in them?

Here is the breakdown of the profiles in question:

1. C:\Documents and Settings\admin33zgb (1.1gb)
2. C:\Documents and Settings\admin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP ("Folder is Empty")
3. C:\Documents and Settings\admin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP.000 ("Folder is Empty")
4. C:\Documents and Settings\admin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP.001 ("Folder is Empty")
5. C:\Documents and Settings\admin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP.002 (57.4mb)

If I were to grab my 57.4mb of data from Profile5 (e.g. save it to a flash drive), then delete profiles 2-5, would it properly load Profile1 upon reboot?

Thanks in advance.

 

I would think it should boot with the 2-5 accounts deleted. Try renaming them by adding a letter C:\Documents and Settings\Badmin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP If it boots okay with them renamed you should be fine.

***1.1GB seems awfully large for an Administrator account you don't use regularly. Did you install a lot of programs from that account? How large are you and your wife's regular account folders (similar sizes)?

 

Thank you. I will try this and get back to you.

Yes, that is the main purpose/rationale for me having a "stand-alone" admin account; it is the profile under which I download and install programs, including MS Office 2007, which I'd wager was at least 690mb by itself.

We have an institutional downloads site, part of which are Microsoft Campus Software License Agreement items, only a a couple of which I've actually downloaded and installed. The upside of this is that there are no physical discs to scratch/lose. The downside to this is that there are large install files I have to put on my machine, at least temporarily. After I had everything up and running to my liking, I intended to delete the rather large install files.

As just one other example, I also do all of my network adjustments from that account, so I have a small text file on admin33zgb's desktop called "network_settings.txt" -- if for any reason I ever lose my network settings, keeping all of that stuff "together" in my admin account is helpful (versus combing through My Documents in my "shooter" profile, trying to distinguish "system" stuff from "personal" stuff). That kind of thing...

My "personal" account ("shooter," which has admin privs) is 493mb; my wife's "personal" account ("wife," which also has admin privs) is only 88.9mb. Mine is so large right now b/c I took a bunch of work home for the holidays and left my work laptop at work over the break. Normally, it'll be around 100-200mb.

 

This typically happens if the computer for some odd reason, can't load your profile. So, it creates a new one.

This happens quite a bit at work.

 

So I renamed profiles 2-5 and, for whatever reason, it's still not loading the original "admin33zgb" profile. I renamed profiles 2-5 from my personal ("shooter") profile, then shut the computer down.

I waited five minutes (did a couple honey-dos) and then turned the computer back on. At the "select profile" screen, I selected the "admin33zgb" profile. It took 3-4 minutes, but finally loaded, never telling me anything about not being able to load the profile.

However, when I went into My Computer and plumbed C:\, I saw that it had created a new/derivative profile.

I hate to pronounce "admin33zgb" corrupted (as the computer never said anything of this nature), but at this point... ?

Also, when looking at my derivative admin profiles, only one actually has anything in it ("admin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP.002," now renamed to "Zadmin33zgb.SHOOTERNETBOOKHP.002").

When comparing the contents of my original ("admin33zgb") profile to this derivative, I notice only one difference. The derivative has an Application Data subfolder, which itself has some subfolders (Adobe, etc). Any ideas as to why?

 

Sorry for the thread revival... so I finally got around to transferring all of the data from my admin33zgb account to a newly-created admin00abc account.

Once I was satisfied that there were no other valuable/document files left, I deleted the old (corrupted?) admin account (via the "User Accounts" interface in the Control Panel) and rebooted the PC.

I then went into My Computer >> C: >> Documents and Settings, where I noticed the profile (profiles, actually) still existed as a folder. The original folder was still pretty large, so I tried deleting it, in order to recover space (remember, I've only got a 15gb solid-state hdd, so space is precious).

It barked at me, telling me that "Renaming, moving or deleting 'admin33zgb' could make some programs not work" and asking me "Are you sure you want to do this?"

I could swear that it also told me yesterday some programs were read-only, but when I actually go into the adminwhatever folder, all I see in there is a ".migoDesktop" folder...

Should I be able to delete this with no problems?