Vista Automatically CreatedNew User Account

Hey All,

I have a mates laptop, he gave it to me to fix as Vista has automatically created a new user account, his data is still there, only in another users account in the User\ folder, We dragged everything accross and reimported his emails, after rebooting, it has done it yet again! How do I fix this without having to cut/paste everything again and how to i stop it from re-occuring?

Thanks

We'll need more info first of all. Is the machine automatically booting into the account? If so then that is possibly a reason why it will keep trying to recreate it....

What is the account, and how does it different in name from his normal account?

When you boot into windows and you get to the user account screen (welcome screen) they account name is the same (rdlaptop), but once going into the Users\ folder there is a TMP.rdlaptop - The account is the only account on the PC, in the new account the Documents/Pictures/Downloads folders are all empty and the desktop has icons on it but only for the All Users desktop icons, none of the customised files/shorcuts from the original account exist, no matter how many times you reboot, it still logs into the TMP account and sometimes re-creates it. Very Odd!!

I'd be scanning that thing for a virus or other type of Malware....

It looks like Windows is creating a temporary user (TMP) to help it load the data, but it can't/doesn't delete it. Unfortunately I have no idea why this may be happening, I've never seen it before.

I think I had something like this on my Dad's PC with XP. It was an account I think Windows or another program for its own use. I did some research and this particular one wasn't malware or a virus, but there are incidents of this happening where it has been a virus.