# Roaming Profiles



## raj0213 (Oct 25, 2009)

Hi, 

We are using roaming profiles on Windows 2003 Server Standard SP2. 
I can delete every folder in a users profile except for the favorites folders, the error message I get is: 

Error Message: Cannot delete the suggested sites.url: access is denied.
Make sure the disk is not full or write protected and that the file is currently not in use. 

I have taken ownership of the profile as a administrator and assigned the appropriate NTFS and share permissions. I don't think its a permissions issue as I can delete the other folders in the profile.

I checked open files on the server and don't see that file as being locked. 

I have downloaded the User hive cleaning tool and started it on the server with no success.

The server also functions as a domain controller and a file server, so rebooting it is out of the question at this time. 

I hope someone can assist with this issue, I'm kinda new to server administration so please provide details steps for any resolutions. 

Thank you


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## Tagware (Aug 3, 2009)

Schedule a reboot.


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## HealthcareIT (Nov 19, 2009)

Just to clarify the problem raj0213 is having: are you trying to delete the 'favorites' folder or just one of the items / sub-folders inside the favorites folder? For example, XP doesn't allow deletion of the 'links' folder which resides inside the 'favorites' folder.

I've got a similiar problem that I haven't solved. I'm also running Server 2003 SP2 and XP Pro SP3 on the clients. 

Starting today, many (but not all) of the user's roaming profiles could not load and the problem seemed to be a specific .url link in the users individual 'favorites/links/xyz.url' folder - with an error that access was denied.

In short, I've verified all the share level and NTFS security settings are correct and then decided to give up and just delete the offending .url link - but I couldn't and was given the error 'access denied' 

I was logged into the server as THE admin and took ownership as the admin and I can delete any other .url link in the folder, just not this specific link.

And it is nothing fancy either - it is the 'customize links.url' link. But when the roaming profile cannot copy that one single file to the local profile, the whole thing is aborted and I get a temporary profile - so it is really screwing up everything.

I'll take any ideas.

Thanks!


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## rhynes (Aug 14, 2006)

Are you taking ownership of just the folder? if so, take ownership of that one url file.

barring that, check under the "all users" or "default user" for the favorites folder - the links you are talking about can probably be removed from there.


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## HealthcareIT (Nov 19, 2009)

The problem is resolved (see below) but while it was occuring I could not take ownership of any of the parent folders (the security and related tabs were there, but I would get an access denied error when attempting to take ownership).

If I tried to take ownership of just the offending file, the security tab was missing so no chance to take ownership. I also tried using cacls to enforce access settings, no luck there either.

In the end, I decided there must be a process accessing and holding/locking the file - thereby preventing access to me or anyone else. I downloaded and ran the free Process Monitor v2.8 from MS and determined that the cidaemon process was holding the offending .url files.

The cidaemon process appears to be part of the MS Indexing service, so I stopped the service and the files were immediately released (everything back to normal - roaming profiles load fine, redirected folders work fine, all security and other tabs show up fine, no ownership issues) so the problem is definitely resolved . . . for now.

This is really just a work-around though as I don't want to leave the MS Indexing service stopped foreover and I need to determine why this suddenly occurred in case it is an early sign of other bigger problems (or a new virus missed by our software and hardware protections).

I hope this helps others.


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