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jrv

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Yes. What has that got to do with anything I posted?



Perhaps you might care to do some research on "user profiles" in Windows.

Unrestricted bloating of an individual user's profile in Windows (any version since Windows NT) leads to a general slowdown of Windows, in particular a slow down in loading time. It significantly increases the probability of the profile becoming corrupted, which can really ruin your day.

Don't voluntarily save files in your c:\users\<username> folder. That includes: don't save files on your desktop. For the love of God don't create folders on your desktop. (Shortcuts are fine on the desktop; just put the actual files somewhere else.) Don't save files in your "Documents", "Pictures", "Videos" or "Music" folders (many programs will dump files there regardless; move them; many programs, although they will default to these folders, allow you to alter the preferences to select alternate locations). And don't install VASL files there.

The only reason not to follow the above advice is if you share the PC with other users (who don't have local administrator privileges), and you don't want them to be able to access your files (and you don't have an alternate location, e.g., a private folder on a network share).

Now, even if you follow the above advice to the absolute limit, your user profile will bloat, because Windows. That's not a reason to voluntarily contribute to the issue.
[/QUOTE]

I did research user profiles. The only thing I found was that if you put a lot in your roaming profile directories in a situation where roaming profiles are used, things slow down. I can understand how that would work.

You seem to hold a very strong opinion on the matter, yet you don't seem to be able to explain on what basis you hold this opinion. Is there a specific place where I might find technical details on the nature of these misbehaviors? The only thing I found was with roaming profiles. And I can can see why and when it would be a problem. I see a lot of "fearware" that is ready to clean your registry and what not, but I don't think there is very much value in it. Cleaning your temp files once in a while is probably a good thing, but mostly for the disk space.

If you want to store data securely in some place other than your user profile directories, it's just a matter of setting the permissions. Windows permissions are, to my mind, very good. Some believe them a bit overwrought. But in any case they are effective. They will not prevent a user with administrative privileges from gaining access if they want to, but that is by design, and it would not matter if the files and folders were in your user profile or not in that case.

JR
 
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jrv

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For those of you who are using windows as your primary OS, these are a couple articles that are fairly sensible:
https://www.howtogeek.com/171633/why-using-a-registry-cleaner-wont-speed-up-your-pc-or-fix-crashes/
https://www.howtogeek.com/168528/htg-explains-do-you-really-need-to-regularly-reinstall-windows/

With any OS, if you are seeing misbehavior, there is a reason, and it is not, in most cases, "because windows."

I have a couple windows virtual machines. I have used to run lots of windows machines. I have since moved to using linux primarily, mostly because it's free. I have had my share of misadventures with linux, just as with windows, some self-inflicted, others thrust upon me (thank you, Debian testing, for breaking gimp this week). If you do switch to linux, don't pick the "testing" version of your distro. Unless you like suffering.

JR
 

bprobst

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Oh, well, I guess my 20+ years of supporting Windows desktops, including numerous first-hand observations of seeing the actual effect of bloated user profiles, doesn't count for anything. Never mind me, shove everything into your user profile if you want to! I won't be the one waiting 20 minutes for Windows to load after you login.
 

jrv

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Oh, well, I guess my 20+ years of supporting Windows desktops, including numerous first-hand observations of seeing the actual effect of bloated user profiles, doesn't count for anything. Never mind me, shove everything into your user profile if you want to! I won't be the one waiting 20 minutes for Windows to load after you login.
Are you the only person who knows about this? That's an incredible discovery! You should post something about it on the internet, including details of what is happening and why it takes so long. It's relatively easy to gather the data (this is one article from Microsoft: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/10128.tools-for-troubleshooting-slow-boots-and-slow-logons-sbsl.aspx; I have not tried it so I can't endorse it but it looks plausible). But you probably already have data, of course. After 20 years of supporting slow logins you must have boatloads of data. After all, if the computer is not able to process user requests, it has to be because it is busy doing something else. With all your data you have the key to determining what that something else is. And from there it's just a simple step to stop it from doing whatever that something else is. The case with the roaming user profile being bloated, as I said, is one thing I know about where the computer is busy doing something else. It's easy to fix. It's not a problem a home user is likely to have because most home users do not set up a network domain with roaming profiles (and AFAIK microsoft does not do this automatically).

All I am asking for is an explanation of why putting files in the profile directories (as opposed to anywhere else) would cause a problem. For your professional experience my first guess is that the problem is with roaming profiles, because in your professional situation you probably have a network domain with roaming profiles. Again that's just a guess, based on no data for your circumstance. So far all you have given is "cargo cult" administration. Don't do this: it's bad because it isn't good. It's the way we do things here. I would like a plausible reason why putting files in the profile directories is any more or less straining on a computer than anywhere else. As the computer sees it, it's all just bits on the disk.

JR
 

Will Fleming

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If you do switch to linux, don't pick the "testing" version of your distro. Unless you like suffering.

JR
I am glutton for punishment--until I can't take it anymore. Way too many upgrades to the alpha/beta early and while it might work for a while, things can break easily while the developers are doing their updates. I actually like tweaking and playing with stuff and doing reinstalls (now and then), but I agree with JR. Get the stable version and when there is a new release wait a few weeks or months before moving up. Unless there is something you desperately need, upgrading your version of linux will probably only get you a tweaked GUI and maybe some new wallpapers.

Of course, whatever OS you use, backups are your friend. JR and his good advice is another.
 
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