Basic Windows Set-Up Problem?

[odegani]

I run Windows XP, Home Edition for about 4 years now. When I observe my 'C' directory using Windows Explorer I have the following directory and sub directories showing (please, see attachment, below). I assume that the directories referred to as All Users, Default Use, Local Service and Network Service are required by the system. However, are the directories under my name (Oded and Oded Degani as well as Owner) required to be triplicated? This becomes a problem when one realizes that the data in them is triplicated as well!
This gobbles enormous amounts of storage memory on my hard drive and I don't know how to correct the situation. I am leery of just deleting the directories because I am not sure of the affect on the system.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks,
Oded
:-|

[xcellpro6]

Hi

It Looks like you have 3 user accounts on you PC

which one do you use

You can delete the other user accounts in control panel

This is the reason you are seeing the multiple files.

HTH

Darren

South Africa

[odegani]

Thanks for your prompt reply!
I went into Control Panel/User Accounts and there are only two 'users' shown: 'Oded Degani' and "Guest'.
I have no idea how the other accounts were installed (with all the attendant sub directories) or how to eliminate them.
Oded

[DavidRyan]

They might be from old accounts. Sometimes the cleanup process leaves folders around if it can't delete a file or folder contained in one of the user folders.

Just delete the "Oded" and "Owner" folders. you might need to take ownership from them or log in as the administrator. They shouldn't come back after a log out or shut down.

"All Users" contains shortcuts and settings common to all users. EG when you install a program and make it available to "All Users on this Computer" the Start Menu/Desktop icons are stored in "All Users" rather than the user folder under which the installer ran.

"LocalService" and "NetworkService" are for the system accounts of the same name, while "Default User" is the template for newly created User Folders, is loaded when someone logs in under a Guest Account, or when a user logs in and Windows cannot load their normal profile for some reason.

Also, it doesn't matter much but you don't have to take screen shots of your directory structure. Open the command prompt and type dir "c:\documents and settings" > "c:\temp\temp.txt" (replace the file paths as needed, if the path conforms with the 8.3 standard you do not need the quotes). That will create a text file (temp.txt) in c:\temp which contains the output of a dir command.

[odegani]

Thanks David. This is great! Who was the one who said "you learn something new every day"? (I have a lot to learn...)
However, before I set to delete these accounts, how do I deal with the data that is included in their sub directories? Somehow, there are a lot of data there although I hardly ever refer to it and I have no idea how it got there. Can I just move all these directories under the one I want to keep?
Also, since these accounts do not show up in Control Panel, do I just delete it using Windows Explorer?
Thanks again for your clarifications.
Oded

[caperjack]

. I assume that the directories referred to as All Users, Default Use, Local Service and Network Service are required by the system. However, are the directories under my name (Oded and Oded Degani as well as Owner) required to be triplicated?
:-|

you say control panel only shows 2 accts, guest and oded degani,so you keep the oded degani for sure,that you ,and the screen shot you show should have i think , as mine does ,a administrator and quest folder , my assumption is that somehow these got renamed and maybe you should delete nothing .

[jbennet]

if you changed your name via control panel the folders still use your origianal accopunt name btw

[odegani]

To David and Jbennet,

I didn't change names via Control Panel. However, I did re-install the Windows OS at some point in time. I may added (or omitted) my surname at that point. Would that be the reason for the added accounts? i.e., would the system keep the old accounts subsequent to re-installation? And thus, can the accounts not shown in Control Panel be simply deleted?
Thanks,
Oded

[DavidRyan]

To David and Jbennet,

I didn't change names via Control Panel. However, I did re-install the Windows OS at some point in time. I may added (or omitted) my surname at that point. Would that be the reason for the added accounts?

Yes, if you installed over the existing windows installation.

i.e., would the system keep the old accounts subsequent to re-installation? And thus, can the accounts not shown in Control Panel be simply deleted?

I wouldn't go deleting each folder which doesn't have an associated account in the control panel. NetworkService, LocalService, etc are all system users, as my earlier post.

Thanks,
Oded

Any documents you need in the Oded/Oded Degani folder to be deleted can just be copied to the Documents folder of the user which you are keeping. Don't worry about the settings folders, if there were any settings in the old account which you still need you would have gotten error messages already.

[odegani]

Thanks David. I'll keep watching the board in case someone comes up with corrections. Then, I'll take a deep breadth and go on a house cleaning task. Hopefully, the "house" will not collapse on me.
Oded