Comments on: Is Your Bloated User Profile Slowing Windows Down? http://www.watchingthenet.com/is-your-bloated-user-profile-slowing-windows-down.html Computer - Internet - Technology Tips And Tutorials Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:14:05 +0000 hourly 1 By: Simon http://www.watchingthenet.com/is-your-bloated-user-profile-slowing-windows-down.html#comment-20663 Simon Wed, 14 Oct 2009 23:40:18 +0000 http://www.watchingthenet.com/is-your-bloated-user-profile-slowing-windows-down.html#comment-20663 I have to agree with the original message, reducing large user profiles speeds up and removes many bloaty problems. I have to agree with the original message, reducing large user profiles speeds up and removes many bloaty problems.

]]> By: Watching The Net http://www.watchingthenet.com/is-your-bloated-user-profile-slowing-windows-down.html#comment-19886 Watching The Net Sat, 29 Aug 2009 21:54:50 +0000 http://www.watchingthenet.com/is-your-bloated-user-profile-slowing-windows-down.html#comment-19886 @Romberry I completely disagree with you. I fixed many anomalies caused by bloated profiles and despite what Microsoft says it does cause issues (do you really think they would tell you otherwise). Unless you are really out there fixing Windows computers, basing your argument on one user/computer (yours), will never give you the big picture. @Romberry

I completely disagree with you. I fixed many anomalies caused by bloated profiles and despite what Microsoft says it does cause issues (do you really think they would tell you otherwise).

Unless you are really out there fixing Windows computers, basing your argument on one user/computer (yours), will never give you the big picture.

]]> By: Romberry http://www.watchingthenet.com/is-your-bloated-user-profile-slowing-windows-down.html#comment-19882 Romberry Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:45:25 +0000 http://www.watchingthenet.com/is-your-bloated-user-profile-slowing-windows-down.html#comment-19882 Bloat is never good but the advice you have posted here is...well...wrong. If you store files and folders in My Documents, those files add to the size of your user profile, just the same as if they were on the desktop. And the size of your user profile has just about nothing at all to do with boot times, slowing Windows down or running out of memory or any of a host of other ills that are claimed (though to be fair, you didn't claim anything other than a slowdown in your write-up.) A great deal of misunderstanding seems to come from an old MS KB article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126962) about out of memory messages which were related to a memory resource called the desktop heap. But I assure you that having files *on* your desktop doesn't load them into memory (a common claim that is wrong) and also that moving files from your desktop (from Win2K on to XP to Vista to Win 7) does *not* reduce the size of your user profile. Your user profile is made up of all the files, folders, shortcuts, links and whatever that you have on your desktop, in your My Docs folder, or anywhere within your particular *user* folder under Windows. Right this second, my user profile is a whopping 30+ gigabytes as I have a great deal of audio and video in my documents folder. Slowdown? None. Speedup from logging completely off that profile and into an admin profile that has a paltry 80 megabytes in the user profile? None. I appreciate your article, but it's based on a misunderstanding/myth. Bloat is never good but the advice you have posted here is…well…wrong. If you store files and folders in My Documents, those files add to the size of your user profile, just the same as if they were on the desktop. And the size of your user profile has just about nothing at all to do with boot times, slowing Windows down or running out of memory or any of a host of other ills that are claimed (though to be fair, you didn't claim anything other than a slowdown in your write-up.)

A great deal of misunderstanding seems to come from an old MS KB article (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126962) about out of memory messages which were related to a memory resource called the desktop heap. But I assure you that having files *on* your desktop doesn't load them into memory (a common claim that is wrong) and also that moving files from your desktop (from Win2K on to XP to Vista to Win 7) does *not* reduce the size of your user profile. Your user profile is made up of all the files, folders, shortcuts, links and whatever that you have on your desktop, in your My Docs folder, or anywhere within your particular *user* folder under Windows. Right this second, my user profile is a whopping 30+ gigabytes as I have a great deal of audio and video in my documents folder. Slowdown? None. Speedup from logging completely off that profile and into an admin profile that has a paltry 80 megabytes in the user profile? None.

I appreciate your article, but it's based on a misunderstanding/myth.

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