What If You Delete the AppData & Users Folder in Windows? 

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So the users folder isn't actually your soul saved digitally? They said everything can be found on computers these days

So the whole point of this video was to confirm that Internet Explorer is still the King of all viruses and there is no way to get rid of it more than 20 years after. Well done MS!

This is the kind of inquisitiveness that scientific progress is built upon.

One time, I tried to delete the AppData folder on my computer because I didn't want to have it. I didn't like that folder.

ThioJoe's Interesting points only get more interesting!

me: **giggle** me: **realizing that I forgot to switch to the virtual machine**

Kind of curious what would happen if you deleted all of the contents of the users folder except for the Default folder. Would it be able to re-create a working profile?

The way you express tech makes almost everybody interested in very confusing things also! You are great, Thio Joe!

I did this myself on my vm. It was fun

"What rhymes with wolf?" My brain: Golf My mouth: Ralph

Interesting content today, Thio! Always been curious about these default folders 😅🤣

we tought a thing: NEVER DELETE SYSTEM32, APPDATA AND USER FOLDER

I enjoyed how this almost felt "gamified" in the epic quest to purge. Nice speed run. I also like how there's isnt any harsh editing for images or sound. Classy production value. Kind regards.

I really enjoy these kinds of videos! I’ve been hoping you might do a “What happens when your phone/laptop dies while updating” video too… Is it really as bad as you’d think it would be?

If you delete "Desktop" then you're also going to delete any data stored on the desktop or in desktop folders. Windows seems to use the "Default" user folder in creating new users, so it wouldn't be able to create new users if deleted.

Thanks joe. I'm always adamant about cleaning my computer/hard drive with all the unused programs. Part of me doesn't because I do not wan to lose anything or something goes wrong. Keep the content coming!

to repair, add c:\users\default\ from another PC and it can recreate a profile based on that profile.

I enjoyed this video so much! I expected you to delete the folders right away but you actually experimented on stuff for fun which I CAN DEFINITELY RELATE TO😂

Fun fact: the internet explorer folder is nessecary for web browsers to work, if you delete it I kid you not using a web browser window will cause your mouse go crazy, aswell as make the keyboard type random letters all the time. I renamed the folder to go from there to deleting it, but then I used Firefox and it was insanely difficult to get my pc working Properly again

I discovered glitches in the NT4 era that could prompt you on whether you wanted to delete some otherwise impossible things like the Recycle Bin. I’d later confirm the same glitch existed in Windows 95 as well. I documented it in a video for anyone that is interested, along with a video description.

Me: I'm looking for some random stupid video Thio: What happens if I delete a system folder?? Me: Oh, found the video ~

Love this windows debloating tutorial.

So as long as the "Default" user exists, a new profile can be created in much the same way as deleting the user and profile via user management - and creating a new user with the same name...

So odd, why would deleting users and appdata prevent windows from recreating accounts? I can understand it messing with programs and profiles, but windows, program files and program data are all still there, so I wonder what it would need to fix this without reinstalling anything. I'm guessing it was deleting the users/default folder that really broke the ability to recreate profiles and the only reason you could delete default but not "user" was because "user" was in use. I also wonder what would happen if you copied a "users\user" folder but not the default folder from another instance back into this one.Ultimately, I think you found an oversight in how Microsoft organizes things. It makes sense logically to keep the default user in the users folder, but it looks like it might be better kept in c:\windows Great video, really got me thinking, I love this stuff!

6:00 The Internet Explorer folder contains the folder Quick Launch that can contain shortcuts to frequently used apps. These can even be placed inside subfolders to create the illusion of submenus for app categories. I pin this to my taskbar and it acts as a dropdown menu for my most used apps (over 80 in total!) rather than using the Start menu or pinning the apps on the taskbar itself. I do the same with the Favorites Bar folder to create a dropdown of most used websites that isn't browser-dependent if I change my default browser and I don't have to export/import bookmarks from one browser to another.

What if we replace the "User" folder data from another computer? What will it do? New question to be solved…

Window: ThioJoe is a big menace to our company.

The users folder is actually the folder where windows stores the user profiles. additionally it remembers the folder names of the particular users in the registry. if the folder of a user is indicated in the registry but not present in the file system you cannot log on. to do that you have to delete the link to the particular user additionally. ist is stored in Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. there are folders with weird names like long digits. in fact it is the users sid. delete the folder of the user you want to test. on next logon the users profile will be recreated since it seems to be a new user from the systems point of view. don't mess to the folders with short names in that registry path. that are the indicators for the system user and the template for new users logging into the system.

Can we get more RU-vidrs like him, even tells what stock image is shown

this was more entertaining than the deleting system32 video

It'll be cool to make a part 2 video where you swap the users folder from Windows 11 and Vista to see if it'll boot up again

You should have deleted the files directly from the unlocker

hey Joe they added Android subsystem on Windows 11 in the US for the Beta Channel please make a video about it!

So to explain some things: NTUSER is literally HKEY_CURRENT_USER, and since Windows mounts it into the Registry there on login, it is locked into System using it until it is unmounted (logging out, I think) UsrClass is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Classes, same situation here Internet Explorer is literally implanted into Explorer in a sense. The Quick Launch uses IE, your Pinned Taskbar items are generated lnks placed in the Internet Explorer folder, and so on. Also the folders in your Home Folder aren't Libraries - the 'Libraries MS' files are the Libraries, though - folders in the Home Folder are just purely folders that the Libraries are configured to use as their main folder respectively.

The recycle bin and my computer does not reside in Desktop folder, it has to be enabled/disabled in settings. Which is why recycle bin came back even without Desktop folder.

That was like watching an episode of "Destruction Derby" -- except for Windows! Great fun... and informative, too. 🤣

7:35 i used to get that error when windows 10 first game out, it was a issue for a small while

"What's your job?" "To delete everything" "Must be nice."

11:24 I think what it means is your session had been blocked by either the TrustedInstaller or Windows has a safety mechanism to shutdown if too many files are deleted, and because of that User Profile Service couldn’t log you in. I could be completely wrong, but it’s a good hypothesis, no?

I found this video interesting, informative, and hilarious. Thanx always Thio, you've come along way, glad to see you've kept you're sense of humor, and I love your love of learning PC's.. reminds me of me. lol

You might mention that you turned on hidden files to do this and select a username other than "User" to help disambiguate the system's use of the term User in your demonstration.

I love that you put what you searched for the images you use

Please make a video "What can you delete for making your PC faster" Thanks for the video :)

I think if left the default user profile it would have been able to recover, if you still have the vm you can copy the default user profile from another win 10 machine, be interesting to see if that works.

Am in this situation am really panicking right now. How can I recover my default user profile?

There's my guess if the User file doesn't exist, it would run the first boot up screen and copy files from the Default folder (C:/Users/Default) since you deleted the entire Users folder, Windows will be no way to create a new user anymore.

*6:00** Because things like quick launch and pinned programs are stored in this folder*

You're creative keep going✨✨✨✨✨.. Sender:your brother (Baraa) from Palestine 🇵🇸🇺🇲

This actually might be useful because I'm having trouble uninstalling a program that ended up having a service that windows "Couldn't locate" and even after going to the specified location in the properties it still didn't show up so I need a way of viewing even the most hidden of files so I can actually find it as I think it's being double hidden by something.

Appdata is more important for me than the windows folder as it has my 7 gig minecraft world and dozens of minecraft screenshots that I'll totally use.

The "Internet Explorer" folder is not completely IE. Interestingly, it contains things such as the Taskbar and Start Menu folders, plus apparently some Windows Shell folders.

0:34 "of course don't do this on your own computer" ..so do it on someone else's computer?

Next you need to delete the “Program Files” and “Program Files (x86)” folders

For some reason I find "Deleting essential computer files" videos really interesting!

This video actually helped me out beacuse some of the app data folders because my icons were blank

Whats going on if you end task manager?

Another folder I wanna see is "C:\Program Data", which is a hidden folder. It's basically AppData for all users. Probably gonna nuke an install too.

This channel is perfect for knowing what I can't press shift+del on

I had to send this to a friend to explain why she shouldn't try to move the ENTIRE app data folder to a bigger drive. She insisted it was taking up too much space on her C drive, but I pointed out that much of that was from less critical files from games that could at least THEORETICALLY be moved separately. I would just have to set up some symbolic links to "trick" those games into putting their data on the second drive. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't actually get around to that, since the D drive disappeared (thankfully only temporarily?), which would've meant more data 💀if the drive had actually completely failed.

you’d think with windows 10 being user friendly they’d do something to prevent you doing stuff like this

As a follow up to this, what happens if you copy-paste your "Users" folder from your main (working) PC into the virtual machine's virtual hard drive? Would that fix it, or do nothing at all?

Surprisingly, if you have WSL or Git Bash, you can delete the majority of the protected files by running 'rm -rvf'

There is actually a 3rd party program, that has the ability to force delete everything if you can't delete them normally, i forget what was the name, but i think something like File eraser

rip to the virtual computer lol.

I wonder if logging in through safe mode was actually trying to re-generate the user by using the Default user's template. In that case, maybe putting the Default user's folder back might make it go through the whole process.

Thiojoe: lets cause as much chaos as possible in the name of science

This and your other videos were actually great info to know what I can partition or move to other drives and what needs to stay with the Windows 👍

*The moment you unhide appdata on a customers computer in order to get them tempfiles for a lost word document - only to later have them accidentally delete appdata*. Yes.. I'm talking from experience xD.

i deleted my windows thank you

the system works without problems. only a specific user broke. it didn't harm the system in any way. But deleting files from folders with the system can break it. But the auto recovery system will try to fix it.

this guy's videos is so educational, I learnt so much from this guy

Now I should be REALLY careful when I continue coding my cleaning tool, I don’t want complaints that people’s entire Users folder disappeared 😂

Probably the best way to free up storage space!

Wow, I've never seen that "It's taking longer than expected" message for the first-time login before, and I've used Windows 10 on some... incredibly slow computers

Jimmy (6) when he needs memory for his super cool game.

The NTUser and UsrClass files are user registry files. Not suprising force unlocking them caused a crash as it is screwing with the kernel. In normal circumstances if you have the default user profie windows will create a new profile for you if it can't load the user,

Did you know that you can't even change your Windows username without breaking Windows? For example, if when setting up Windows, you set your username as "John Smith", then later wanted to change it to "John" to shorten it and not have to deal with the space, it won't work as you expect. You _can_ change it and it Windows will display "John" from now on, but under the hood, the directory will still be "John Smith". If you change it to "John", a lot of stuff will break, including actual parts of Windows, let alone all kinds of third-party programs. Even if you manually search-and-replace the original pathname everywhere in the registry, it's probably also located in all kinds of files. Even if you search-and-replace it in every INI, CFG, TXT, etc. file you can find it in, it'll likely still be located in various binary files which you won't be able to edit easily, if at all. Basically, whatever username you initially created is the one you're stuck with unless you create a whole new account, but doing so would mean you'd have to re-configure every single setting and preference you've ever changed in Windows and every program. 😒 MAKE SURE TO CHOOSE YOUR USERNAME WISELY FROM THE START!

When I was a kid, I remember deleting the recycle bin on our windows 2000 PC. No idea how and why it fucked everything up. My dad still talks about it 20 years later.

Him : do not it on your computer Me : trying it on my school computer

fun fact: you can fix this by booting into windows pe (specifically hiren boot pe) and doing something but once you log in you will be signed into a temporary account and you have to make a new user in order to fix it

i love how his recorder is just fine

You are awesome man, keep up what you are doing. I love this type of content.

Before Windows Vista, it was C:\Documents and Settings. In Vista, it was changed to C:\Users

two ideas 1. can you break a computer with task manager 2. is there something that, when you delete it, the computer just shuts down

GameDVR is that feature that permanently record your screen in silence and you can do a shortcut to clip the last 30 seconds. It's tied to xbox gaming bar recording service. To stop it you must remove it in regedit

Well,you can go to active the command prompt on the repair thing and activate the Adminstrator account,so Windows isn't "dead"

Wow. The day you created the virtual machine windows 10, it was my birthday. 13/10.

I'm curious what would happen if you would create a user account using cmd on a broken installation through recovery options 🤔

4:48 The Wallpaper Has Disappeared Because Windows Stores Wallpaper Cache Just For A Backup becuase lets sayur applying a custom wallpaper and windows is using only that directory where you think the wallpaper is but when you delete it its gone so what windows does is just as soon as you apply the custom wallpaper It Goes Ahead Creates A Duplicate Of That File Somewhere in appdata and applies that as a wallpaper and that is also why whenever you delete the custom wallpaper it will be applied as the desktop background

a few years ago, two parents went out for dinner. A few hours later, the babysitter was calling to ask if she could cover up the clown statue in the kids' room, the father said,"Take the kids and get out of the house. We'll call the police, we don't have a clown statue." The "clown statue" is really a killer that escaped from jail. If you don't post this letter on to 10 videos tonight, the clown will be in your bed at 3:00 am with a chainsaw in his hand(

0:19 Users Folders: Joe Who's Joe?

*sees comments from years ago* ThioJoe: Well, guess it's time

hey, try to "inject" real user folder from another pc in your vm or pc ;) also , if there couple of users on one pc and you want to save some users and delete other , this is the way how clean the pc, enable in settings build in Administrator user with all rights and login - now you can manipulate any user account on pc)

The Virtual Windows:WHAT ARE U DOING!?!?!?! ThioJoe:*deleting files windows needs*

The reason why the VM wasn't able to fix the deleted user profile is because you deleted the 'Default' user profile. THAT profile is actually used to create new user accounts. When a new one is created, all files and settings from the default profile are copied over to the new profile. I guess what the OS was doing was it was trying to create the Users folder which it did, but then checked for the Default folder and didn't find it. So the OS just got stuck on the first-time boot-up not knowing what to do because there is no Default profile and I guess it crashed eventually.

Love this type of thing. You did one in January 2022. That was a scream 😱

Him: please don't use in your computer Me: uses friend computer

Asking and answering the right questions

ok so um basically this somehow happened to my friend's pc. there was an app he installed that somehow took over the users folder as it's own and had it's files directly within the users folder. didn't know that. tried to uninstall the app to reinstall it since it had problems working. when I did that it deleted the other files that are within the users folder as if they were its own. now my mate has all kinds of problels and we're trying to figure it out. this is on windows 11 btw. the background also immediately turned dark and the icons were gone, same as you showed after deleting the appdata folder.