What parts of a Roaming Profile get uploaded in Windows 7?

Everything in the local user profile folder (pointed to by the environment variable %USERPROFILE%) gets synchronized with the roaming profile on the file server at logoff, except folders configured in the exclusion list.

On Windows 7 the exclusion list contains by default:

  • $Recycle.bin
  • AppData\Local
  • AppData\LocalLow

On Windows 10 1511 the exclusion list contains by default:

  • $Recycle.bin
  • AppData\Local
  • AppData\LocalLow
  • OneDrive
  • Work Folders

The list is stored in the registry, at

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\ExcludeProfileDirs

It can be configured via the Group Policy setting

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\System\User Profiles\Exclude directories in roaming profile.

For more information please see my article How to Reduce the Size of Roaming Profiles and Microsoft Knowledge base articles KB315415 and KB814592.


Lots of things - it sounds like your understanding of Roaming Profiles is fairly lacking. The user registry (Which is really NTUSER.DAT) is only one half of the story. I'd suggest browsing to your roaming profiles location (The one on the server, rather than the workstation) and you'll all of the other stuff such as Application Data and maybe the Desktop etc etc.

All of the things you see there are uploaded at log off, and downloaded at log on.