Not in front of a computer but something close to this run as administrator iirc. Get-Item "C:\Users\*\Desktop\Name Of Shortcut.lnk" | Remove-Item

On Windows 7:

[PS]> echo $ENV:UserProfile
C:\Users\arco444

This returns the path to the profile directory. Therefore I'd expect looking only for the username to fail the condition. I'd do a simple match instead:

if ($env:userprofile -imatch "rmullins")
{
    Remove-Item $env:userprofile\Desktop\ITFILES -Recurse -Force
}

$ErrorActionPreference = "SilentlyContinue"$Path = "C:\Users"$UserFolders = Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Directory$currentDate = Get-Date$ageLimit = 60# Set the execution policy to bypass (use with caution in production)Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Force# Loop through each user profile folderForEach ($UserFolder in $UserFolders) {    $UserName = $UserFolder.Name    # Only process profiles that have an NTUser.dat file    $NTUserPath = "$Path\$UserName\NTUSER.DAT"    If (Test-Path $NTUserPath) {        $Dat = Get-Item $NTUserPath -Force        $DatTime = $Dat.LastWriteTime        # Reset NTUSER.DAT's LastWriteTime to match the folder's LastWriteTime        If ($UserFolder.Name -ne "default") {            $Dat.LastWriteTime = $UserFolder.LastWriteTime        }    }    # Calculate profile age and delete if older than $ageLimit    $profileAge = ($currentDate - $UserFolder.LastWriteTime).Days    If ($profileAge -ge $ageLimit) {        # Remove user profile and any content inside it (use with caution)        Try {            Remove-Item -Path $UserFolder.FullName -Recurse -Force            Write-Host "Deleted profile: $UserName"        } Catch {            Write-Host "Error deleting profile: $UserName - $_"        }    }}# Optional: Clean up empty folders (if necessary)$EmptyFolders = Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -Directory | Where-Object { $_.GetFileSystemInfos().Count -eq 0 }ForEach ($EmptyFolder in $EmptyFolders) {    Try {        Remove-Item -Path $EmptyFolder.FullName -Force        Write-Host "Deleted empty folder: EmptyFolder.Name)"    } Catch {        Write-Host "Error deleting empty folder: EmptyFolder.Name) - $_"    }}Write-Host "Profile cleanup complete."

You can retrieve the root (parent) directory of all user profile directories from the registry as follows:

$profilesRootDir = 
  Get-ItemPropertyValue 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList' ProfilesDirectory

To get a specific user's profile directory, say jdoe, you can then use:

# See more robust alternative below.
Join-Path $profilesRootDir jdoe

However, the ultimate source of truth is the ProfileImagePath value in the subkeys of the above registry key path, named for each user's SID (security identifier), which Get-LocalUser does provide (the output objects have a .SID property).

Thus, it is better to use:

Get-ItemPropertyValue "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\$((Get-LocalUser jdoe).SID)" ProfileImagePath

To reliably get the profile directories of all enabled local users, use the following:

Get-LocalUser | 
  Where-Object Enabled |
  ForEach-Object {
    # Note the use of ...\ProfileList\_.SID) and value name ProfileImagePath
    Get-ItemPropertyValue "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\_.SID)" ProfileImagePath
  }

If $env:USERPROFILE doesn't work, is this because the software you're using is running using either SYSTEM or a service account? Also, give this a read . Enumerating the HKEY_USERS registry hive might be the way to go.

In powershell you need to use $env:UserProfile:

copy "$($env:USERPROFILE)\AppData\Local\Thing" "$($env:USERPROFILE)\AppData\Local\Thing.backup"

• And to concatenate strings with variable you need to use the self-expression operator $().
• Actually copy is an alias of powershell Cmdlet Copy-Item.

---

Sidenote: If you need to use literal '%USERPOFILE%' then use -LiteralPath or use single quotes.

Windows can create a user-profile on-demand, using the CreateProfile API

However, if don't want to create an executable to perform this operation, you can call the API in PowerShell. Others have already done it: example on github.

Relevant part of the code:

$methodName = 'UserEnvCP'
$script:nativeMethods = @();

Register-NativeMethod "userenv.dll" "int CreateProfile([MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string pszUserSid,`
  [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] string pszUserName,`
  [Out][MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)] StringBuilder pszProfilePath, uint cchProfilePath)";

Add-NativeMethods -typeName $MethodName;

$localUser = New-Object System.Security.Principal.NTAccount("$UserName");
$userSID = $localUser.Translate([System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]);
$sb = new-object System.Text.StringBuilder(260);
$pathLen = $sb.Capacity;

Write-Verbose "Creating user profile for $Username";
try
{
    [UserEnvCP]::CreateProfile($userSID.Value, $Username, $sb, $pathLen) | Out-Null;
}
catch
{
    Write-Error $_.Exception.Message;
    break;
}