How to delete Appdata/roaming folder

Question

Hi,

I had a person stay at my house so as a favor I created a user profile on my computer for them. The person is no longer a part of my household and deleted the profile, or so I thought. However there is still a folder on the network drive for that person, I have tried to delete it however I keep getting access denied, I have logged into the administrators account and tried again, still access denied. I have full permissions.

I cannot open the roaming folder, in fact when I try to open it I get the following

Windows cannot access \\network\users\****\AppData\Roaming Contact your network administrator to request access.

I am the system administrator.

I cannot delete this folder

I cannot open this folder

however the roaming properties indicates 0 bytes, 0 files, 0 folders.

Can someone help me to delete this folder.

TIA

Answer 1

Just login in safe mode. (restart computer while booting push f8). Select safe mode. login as the Administrator (or local admin account). In file explorer unhide the folders. File Explorer Menu -> Organize -> Folder and Search options -> Click View Tab

check Don' tshow hidden files, ..

uncheck hide empty drives

uncheck hide protected operating system files

click apply and ok.

Then using the file explorer delete the unused folders under users.

Careful not to delete active profiles!

Just fyi you should always try to delete the user profiles by using the system properties windows

the choose user profiles. From there you can delete the user profiles as a whole. this gets rid of registry entries and folders too. A lot cleaner.

but I understand the issues from this appdata roaming folder. Windows is not perfect.

Answer 2

Thanks for your reply,

While I can understand why it is not recommended to delete the main appdata/roaming folder, this is for an unused user profile and there is nothing in it. I have never had a problem deleting a user profile before. It has never been an issue until now.  I have no use for this profile and it is showing up in places where I don't want it to be, like my Smart TV network profiles.

However, I worked out how to do it, the profile is now deleted and no longer showing on my network.

Thank you.

Answer 3

Hi Tia

It is not recommended to delete Appdata\Roaming folder as it contains settings, temporary and cache files for many of your installed applications. It is also where programs on your machine store data that is specific to your user account.

For more information, you may check out these links that discuss related concern:

Can i delete AppData Roaming folder?

Windows 10 Roaming folder

Feel free to post back should you need further help.

Regards.

Answer 4

Hi Flashfire,

I have the same problem as you. Do you mind telling me how you worked out to delete the WHOLE Roaming folder. I'm having trouble and need a solution.