Description
You receive the following error message when trying to log off or restart Windows:
Profile Storage Space – You have exceeded your profile storage space. Before you can log off, you need to move some items from your profile to network or local storage.
This message continues to appear every time you attempt to log off or restart.
Symptoms
- You attempt to log off or restart Windows and the above error message appears.
- This message continues to appear even though you have deleted a lot of files from your profile
Explanation
This problem occurs when the user has exceeded their Maximum Profile Size (MaxProfileSize) and Profile Quota is enabled for the local PC. This can be resolved by creating an merging a simple registry file into the PC’s local Windows registry. Be warned, editing the registry can cause more problems then it fixes if done incorrectly.
Solution
**Updated 12th April 2010**
Instead of following the manual creation steps below you can now download the registry file by clicking here.
Step 1 – Create the registry file
- Open Notepad by clicking Start > Run > notepad.exe > OK
- Paste the following code into Notepad (Note some web browsers screw up the code below so you may have to manually replace the double quotes by re-typing them and remove any whitespace also.):
- Click File > Save As…
- Change the Type in the Save As box to All Files
- Save the file to your Desktop as policy.reg
- Close Notepad
- Locate the file on your desktop > right-click on policy.reg and choose Merge
- Click OK to the confirmation
- Restart Windows
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
“EnableProfileQuota”=-
“ProfileQuotaMessage”=-
“MaxProfileSize”=-
“IncludeRegInProQuota”=-
“WarnUser”=-
“WarnUserTimeout”=-
I’m using XP-Home. This worked fine. I have the RegAlyzer and took a snagit pic of how it looked before the merge. ThankS!
I was nervous trying your fix, since I don’t know you. However, I was desperate and willing to try anything. It worked! I had not been able to log off or shut down the computer. I tried reinstalling XP, but it reached a point where it needed to restart and couldn’t proceed because of this error. Now it is workingagain. Thank you!
Hi Jan, Thanks for your comments. I’m glad it worked for you and so many others too.
Rosco
I tried steps 1-9 above at least 3x and it did not work. Is there something else going on with my computer (HP, WinXP Home Ed)?
I tried the above but the file I created with notepad was not recognized as a registration file even though I and would not merge. Working with Win XP pro. Help
Hi Lyle,
Did you make sure that the Type in the Save As box was chosen as All Files? If not, then the file will save as policy.reg.txt (and you may not be able to see the .txt part depending on windows settings) and that would not work.
Try to re-save the file in notepad ensuring the All Files type is chosen as per step 4 in the solution.
R.
hi, i have a windows xp home on a dell inspiron laptop. I tried steps 1 through 9, but it did not work. I even tried to force shut down the laptop and started it again, but i am still getting the error. the file merged succesfully. what am doing wrong?
Thank a lot for the tip, its working fine….
Thanks a lot, its working fine
Thanks a lot.
It worked a charm. Thanks again
thanks for the info, unfortuneately, it did not work for me, after i right click policy.reg on my desktop, it only shows what i have pasted
hope you can help
fred
Had some of the same issues.
2 things:
When pasting, make sure it also pastes the ” marks.
Take out any additional blank lines that the pasting may put in.
After doing this it worked fine.
it did not work for me. checked in registy editor, no keys/values had been inserted. If I try to manually enter, symble \-\ should be a string value or dword value?
thanks
paul
[...] proposed | solution I use policy.reg in this article: Error: You Have Exceeded Your Profile Storage Space… [...]
Fantastic, it worked great! I’m running XP Home, and had to reinstall/repair from original CD. That’s when I got the profile-space error. After going to the Microsoft update site to get the 70 something Service Package 2 updates, then uploading SP3 with its own 59 updates the profile space error still remained. Apparently, Microsoft has no official, published fix for this problem and steered me to “peer” websites. Luckily, I found this site. Other suggestions I found elsewhere that involved using the policy editor (my version with all current updates doesn’t have it) didn’t work. Many, many thanks for sharing your expertise!