Wow.

So, I copied some profiles over using Robocopy. The size of these profiles on the new server was staggering! I had to expand the drive to accommodate the bloat!
Then I started looking – the data on the original profiles was not anywhere close to that big.

What happened?

Well, this is my normal robocopy command :

Robocopy \\OldServer\c$\Users\username C:\users\username * /ZB /e /Copy:DATSO /dcopy:DAT /xo /r:0 /XD $Recycle.Bin DFSRPrivate /XF desktop.ini thumbs.db /Log:c:\temppath\username.log /np /tee

One profile got the glitch – and others were starting to before I added a little line in my command code:

Robocopy \denali-rds-s16\c$\Users\username C:\users\username * /ZB /e /Copy:DATSO /dcopy:DAT /xo /r:0 /XD $Recycle.Bin "Application Data" DFSRPrivate /XF desktop.ini thumbs.db /Log:c:\temppath\username.log /np /tee

The profile that had the problem – well, I am still deleting with the following code:

Robocopy c:\temppath\blank "C:\users\username\appdata\local\application data\application data" * /ZB /e /purge /Copy:DATSO /dcopy:DAT /xo /r:0 /XD $Recycle.Bin DFSRPrivate /XF desktop.ini thumbs.db /Log:c:\temppath\usernamePurge.log /np /tee

c:\temppath\blank is an empty folder. Robocopy will delete anything within the target thanks to the /purge switch. This also works for folder paths with more than 256 characters that windows can’t delete on it’s own.

Anyway – starting I had 190 GB free on the drive – I am at 400 GB free on the drive now. More than 200 GB in nested “Application Data” folders – replicated by robocopy over and over and over again.

24 nested folders – and this is after about 20 minutes of deleting! It is still going as I write this!

… and it just finished – 402 GB free –

Okay, I know what you’re thinking – what does copying a profile to a new system with Robocopy accomplish? It doesn’t really transfer the profile over!

That is where I have to give a shout out to the Genius team at ForensIT – Profile Wiz is a life safer!
http://www.forensit.com/products.html

You can use Profile Wiz to literally take over a profile! Lets say, for example, JohnSmith worked for the company for 5 years, and all his documents and such were in his profile. John gets hit by a bus and you get a new employee – Brad Cooper – well, you want Brad to have all of John’s information – you can use Profile Wiz to give c:\users\johnsmith to the BradCooper login. Concerned about the folder name? Change the folder name to BradCooper – and then use the “Unassigned Profiles” checkbox to assign it to Brad.

Absolutely worth the Profession Edition!