Users C:\Users

User profiles (documents, desktop, AppData, NTUSER.DAT). Localized as "Utilisateurs" in French File Explorer.

Updated on 12 November 2026 By AltF4 Formation

What it’s for

C:\Users receives the profile of every account that signs in: desktop, documents, downloads, application data. It has replaced the Documents and Settings folder of Windows XP since Vista. French File Explorer shows it as “Utilisateurs”, but the real path remains C:\Users.

What it contains

One folder per user (C:\Users\<name>): Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Pictures, AppData (hidden), NTUSER.DAT and more.
Default: the template profile copied for each new account. Default User and All Users are compatibility links to Default and ProgramData.
Public: a space shared by all accounts on the machine.
Profiles of domain accounts or deleted accounts stay until someone removes them.

Risks and best practices

Do not delete a profile from File Explorer. An entry remains under ProfileList in the registry, and the user may then sign in to a temporary profile. Use System Properties > User Profiles, or Remove-CimInstance on Win32_UserProfile.
Do not rename a profile folder: its path is recorded in the registry under the account’s SID.
Each profile is readable only by its owner, the system and administrators. Restoring those rights after a careless copy is painful: copy profiles with robocopy /e /copyall or a migration tool.
On corporate workstations, consider folder redirection or OneDrive, and back up profiles without their caches.

Useful commands

# Contents of C:\Users, including hidden links
Get-ChildItem C:\Users -Force | Select-Object Name, Attributes

# Known machine profiles: path, SID, last use
Get-CimInstance Win32_UserProfile | Select-Object LocalPath, SID, LastUseTime

# As administrator: clean deletion of a profile (remove -WhatIf to run)
Get-CimInstance Win32_UserProfile | Where-Object LocalPath -eq 'C:\Users\old-account' | Remove-CimInstance -WhatIf

Folder contents

Folders 5

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