KB265: What is OrphanAccounts.txt?

Note that this article only applies to V5.1

Daily just after midnight a check is run to determine if there are orphan accounts on FileServers (in other words folders on FileServers that do not have matching accounts on the NameServer) and also orphan accounts on the NameServer (accounts on the NameServer that do not have matching folders on the allocated FileServer.    If any such discrepancies are picked up it is written to a file called OrphanAccounts.txt which is in the root of the NameServer install folder.   A message will be logged in the NameServer logfile to indicate that discrepancies have been deteced:

Warning: Orphan Accounts found, please see OrphanAccounts.txt for details

This file is only informative and no further action is taken (like automatically deleting folders or accounts).  It is simply logged for an administrator to investigate.  Possible causes for entries in this file may be account deletions that were interruped (perhaps the FileServer was restarted in the middle of a delete) or account folders that have manually been moved or renamed. 

Most importantly it gives an indication of accounts that should most likely not be on a particular FileServer and is just taking up space.  It is the decision of the Administrator how to handle these situations. 

Note that the orphan accounts mentioned with SP update 5 is something else and refers to mismatches between groups and accounts (as opposed to account mistmatches between NameServer and FileServer).