c# delete user profile

Question

I am trying to use c# to delete a user profile on a remote server. I am running the program as myself. If I browse to \\server\c$\Users\ as myself I can delete the directory "User". It gives no error. If I use my program written in C# with the code below to attempt to delete the same directory I get back this exception.

Access to the path 'appsFolder.itemdata-ms' is denied.

Am I doing something wrong with my delete?

Directory.Delete("\\\\server\\c$\\Users\\User\\",true);

Answer 1

Hi I was trying to same thing and found Directory.Delete() cannot delete files if file is Hidden or a system file.

Using cmd instead to delete folder.

   public static FileAttributes RemoveAttribute (FileAttributes att, FileAttributes attToRemove)
   {
        return att &  ~attToRemove;
    }

public void DeleteProfileFolder(string file)
 {
    Process process = new Process();
    ProcessStartInfo startInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
    startInfo.WindowStyle = ProvessWindowsStyle.Hiddenl
    startInfo.FileName = "cmd";
    startInfo.Arguments = "/C rd /S /Q  \"" + file + "\"";
    process.StartInfo = startInfo;
   process.Start();
   process.WaitForExit();
}

public void Deletes(DirectoryInfo baseDir)
{  
     if(! baseDir.Exists)
       return;
   var Dirs = Directory.EnumerateDirectories(baseDir.ToString(),"*.*",SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly);
   var files = Directory.EnumerateFiles(baseDir.ToString(),"*.*",SearchOption.TopDirectoryOnly);

   foreach(var dir in Dirs)
   {
         DeleteProfileFolder(dir);
    } 
  foreach(var file in files)
 {
      FileAttributes att = File.GetAttributes(f);
      if((att & FileAttributes.Hidden) == FileAttribute.Hidden)
      {  
            att = RemoveAttribute(att, FileAttributes.Hidden);
            File.SetAttributes(file , att);
            File.SetAttributes(File, FileAttributes.Normal)
        }
   File.Delete(file);
  }

}

To call This

Deletes("c:\Users\"); // did this on local system.

I havn't tried on network location but I thing this will work.

Note: To completely delete userProfile we also need to delete registry.