Deleting user profile registry key based on profile name with Batch file

Question

I am attempting to write a batch script to delete a registry key for a user profile. The user profile will always have the same name, but the key is different for every computer and increments each time the username is created, even though the previous one was deleted.

I'm guessing that it would require some type of for loop to identify the key value for the ProfileImagePath as C:\Users\Username.

I know wildcards don't work so reg delete 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-*' /f won't work.

I'm aware of some PS scripts that can do this, but I would like to keep this in a batch file.

Answer 1

Here's a single line example of the methodology I'd suggest, (which will not become obsolete when WMIC.exe is removed from Windows 11).

@For /F "EOL= Delims=" %%G In ('%SystemRoot%\System32\reg.exe Query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList" /S /F "C:\Users\Username" /D /E 2^>NUL ^| %SystemRoot%\System32\find.exe "S-1-5-21-"') Do @%SystemRoot%\System32\reg.exe Delete "%%G" /V "ProfileImagePath" /F 1>NUL 2>&1

Please take account of my commented advice too.