<p>One of our users reported that he is unable to completely delete a user profile from his Windows 10 OS. They say that when they delete user accounts using Accounts feature, those accounts reappear once the computer is restarted.</p>
<p>Users can be created, modified or deleted using GUI or using command prompt / PowerShell commands. In this article, we will cover the Windows 10 GUI process to create and delete a user account completely from the system.</p>
<p>Right-Click on Start (Windows Logo) and select <strong>Settings</strong> from the list.<br />
Click on <strong>Accounts</strong> |<strong> Family or other people</strong> |<strong> Add someone else to this PC</strong></p>
<p>For this purpose, we will create a local account instead of a user with a Microsoft account.<br />
In the How will this person sign-in click <strong>I don&#8217;t have this person&#8217;s sign-in information</strong> and then <strong>Add a user without a Microsoft account</strong>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/delete-user.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2397" src="https://www.wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/delete-user.png" alt="" width="611" height="530" /></a></p>
<p><a href="https://www.wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/delete-user-2.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2398" src="https://www.wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/delete-user-2.png" alt="" width="475" height="195" /></a></p>
<p>Now you are able to modify user change account type of the user (Standard vs Administrator) or you can remove this account and its profile folder.</p>
<p>You can also manage user accounts in an old-fashion way that&#8217;s still the best way and that I would recommend over this fancy Microsoft GUI way.</p>
<p>Right-click on Start (Windows Logo) and select <strong>Computer Management<br />
</strong>In the left pane navigate to <strong>Local Users and Groups</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/delete-user-3.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2399" src="https://www.wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/delete-user-3.png" alt="" width="294" height="322" /></a></p>
<p>In the right pane double-click <strong>Users</strong> and here you can manage users more easily. Please have in mind that using Computer Management you won&#8217;t be able to create a new user account that uses Microsoft account. For that purpose please use the <strong>Accounts</strong> panel from the beginning of this article.</p>
<p>In order to completely delete the user account and its profile please do the following:</p>
<p>Delete the user by choosing the <strong>Remove</strong> button from the Accounts panel.<br />
Open Computer Management, navigate to Users and check if the user has been deleted. If not, delete the user from Computer Management.<br />
Open Registry editor (regedit) and navigate to: “<strong>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList</strong>”.<br />
Expand the ProfileList folder and search for accounts with long identifiers as in the picture below</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/delete-user-4.png"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-2400" src="https://www.wincert.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/delete-user-4.png" alt="" width="200" height="124" /></a></p>
<p>Once you select the folder in the <strong>ProfileList</strong>, in the right pane look for &#8220;<strong>ProfileImagePath</strong>&#8221; key and see the user account that this registry key refers to. If there&#8217;s a key for the user account that has been deleted, you can safely delete that key.</p>
<p>If you&#8217;ll still have issues with deleting user accounts on Windows 10, please post below and I&#8217;ll try to help.</p>

How to completely delete user accounts in Windows 10
