How can I make a user profile temporary?

Question

When you add a user to the Guests group, then login as that user, then open "Configure advanced user profile properties", the status for that user is "Temporary" instead of "Local".

How can set a user to have a temporary profile without adding them to the guests group?

Edit: This behavior is the same from Windows 2000 through Windows 10, but I'm mostly interested in 7 SP1 and 10 1607. I know about mandatory profiles and Shared PC Mode but I'm looking for a solution that doesn't use these.

Answer 1

Set the profile for a user to a read-only folder to force a temporary profile.

Temporary User Profiles (Windows)

A temporary user profile is issued each time an error condition prevents the user's profile from loading. Temporary profiles are deleted at the end of each session, and changes made by the user to their desktop settings and files are lost when the user logs off. Temporary profiles are only available on computers running Windows 2000 and later.

Step 1: Create Dummy Folder (once)

1. Create a new folder C:\Users\dummy
2. Leave empty with default permissions

Note: This folder is not accessible by default as it requires administrative approval to modify, even for Administrators. You can more explicitly force read-only by removing the Administrators permission from the folder.

Step 2: Assign Dummy Folder To Users

1. Create new user(s) as you normally would, if not already done
2. In an administrative command prompt, type the following for each USERNAME:
   net user USERNAME /PROFILEPATH:C:\Users\dummy /HOMEDIR:C:\Users\dummy

Step 3: Rename Existing User Folder (Optional, Windows 10 only)

If Windows 10 cannot access the specified user folder (from Step 2), it will attempt to load an existing profile. To prevent this, rename an existing profile from USERNAME to USERNAME.old.

Notes:

• When logged in, the user profile is displayed with Type: Roaming and Status: Temporary.
• This works for everyone: Users, Guests, Power Users, and even Administrators.
• This is not destructive and can be reverted easily without side-effects.
• The user maintains all file permissions, including access to an existing user profile.
• Tested on up-to-date Win 7 Enterprise and Win 10 Creators Update 1703, but it sshould work on Windows 2000 and later.

Windows 10 Note:

Windows 10 will display the following warning dialog upon logging on with an inaccessible (read-only) profile. Simply click Dismiss to continue.

Answer 2

I came across the answer in a blog by Ralph Jansen, a Microsoft MVP. It requires changing a single registry value: HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\[SID]\State to 0x80 (128 in decimal).

https://web.archive.org/web/20151218221641/https://ittechlog.wordpress.com/2014/06/27/switch-a-local-profile-to-temporary/

Answer 3

Step 1: Make a normal account from admin, e.g. "Temp Account"

Step 2: DON'T make any changes to the permissions, leave it as a local account.

Step 3: Log in into the account you just created

Step 4: SWITCH the user back to the admin (Notice: Switch, not log out or lock)

Step 5: Go to C://Drive -> Users -> Temp Account

Step 6: Delete the entire folder

Step 7 (Optional): Remove from the recycle bin to avoid possible corruptions

Step 8: Log back in into Temp Account

Step 9: Log out of Temp Account, Then Log in again.

Step 10: You're set! Now this account will be automatically deleted every time you sign out of it and will not store any data unless copied to public folders. But it can still be chosen in the account menu.