How To Erase The 'NTUSER.dat' File On XP?

A

Anonymous

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How can I erase this file? it seems to contain records of activities on the pc. i'm told it simply cannot be erased because its needed to run xp?

please help.

thanks

Sp
 
Assuming you are not logged in as administrator:

Login as Administrator and delete the files.

Garrett
 
I am logged in as the Admin. Atleast I believe so. I'm the only user that uses this PC and don't have any user accounts apart from the one I created when installing Windows. How am I able to log into 'admin' ? I thought I would already have default admin privelges...

Would I be able to delete the file on reboot? Is it safe?

Thanks for the reply.
 
boot into safe mode w/ cmd prompt by tapping F8 at boot and type:

CD\ - press enter
del index.dat /s - press enter
 
I want to delete the ntuser.dat file.

Garet - is it ok to delete the ntuser.dat file on xp? i still haven't been able to do it...
 
The 'ntuser.dat' file in a user profile contains the user's HKCU registry hive. Changing this file while the user has an account on the system will cause breakage.

If you wish to wipe the 'ntuser.dat' file, then remove the user account prior.

It is difficult to wipe the 'ntuser.dat' file of built-in accounts like the Administrator. You might be able to reassign the built-in to another privileged account with the Policy Editor. Try it and report whether it works.
 
Well, I logged in as Admin and deleted the user profile's ntuser.dat file (backed it up first). Then proceeded to reboot into Windows. The user profile basically become 'unrecognisable' to the OS, and a new username/accouunt was automatically created. It was basically a copy of the previous profile, only all settings were refreshed and the orginal profile remained in the documents and settings folder.

So, I was able to delete the ntuser.dat file, only it caused problems which I would rather have not gone thru. It appears not much is known about the ntuser.dat file. Finding decent information on it is rather tedius. Even asking so called 'experts'.

is difficult to wipe the 'ntuser.dat' file of built-in accounts like the Administrator. You might be able to reassign the built-in to another privileged account with the Policy Editor. Try it and report whether it works
Click to expand...
Yep, I tried this. Also recieved the same problem with Windows not recognising the profile and creating another one.

I also find it very off that the ntuser.dat file needs to store random/miscellaneous information in it. Even of deleted files. I wasn't able to find out why it does this, maybe you could shed some light on this, dajhorn? I don't think many 'cleaner software' developers know about the ntuser.dat file. I haven't seen anything that is able to clean it or mention it in their FAQs...
 
If you want delete your tracks from registry then try MRU-Blaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/mrublaster.html

" MRU-Blaster is a program made to do one large task - detect and clean MRU (most recently used) lists on your computer.

These MRU lists contain information such as the names and/or locations of the last files you have accessed. They are located ALL OVER your registry, and for almost ANY file type. By looking at these MRU lists, someone could determine what files you opened/saved/looked at, what their file names were, and much more! (And, in many cases, the lists are displayed in drop-down menus automatically.) "
 
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