Recovering Profile using the previous profile directory

[albertz]

Hello,

I was running some system cleaning programs and after a re-boot something happened to my default profile and Vista logged me in using a temporary user profile.

In the registry Profilelist .Bak entry somehow become deleted

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

I have no .bak entry and only

S-1-5-18
S-1-5-19
S-1-5-20
S-1-5-21-2775668064-1809394071-3142224748-1000

(There is no "S-1-5-21-2775668064-1809394071-3142224748-1000.Bak" entry)

However, my original profile directory on the hard drive is still intact

Vista has me logon with a profile name of

" Computername-pc\Username "

from a command prompt shows " C:\Users\Username.Computername "

I'm using "Username" and "Computername" in place of the actual username and computername.

I tried using system restore but it wasn't able to successfully complete. I'm wondering since the original profile directory is still intact if there's a method to repair and and revert back to the previous profile and profile folder that somehow became damaged, a necessary file was deleted, etc.

At this point I would like to revert back or just rename Username.Computername to Username.

It's possible system restore did not work because I was loggin as "Username.Computername" instead of Administrator. The Administrator account is currently disable I'll try logging in as Administrator to see if I can make some other changes and run system restore again.

All the files inside the previous profile folder appear to be intact.

There is a folder under the previous profile folder named Username.Computername approx. 100 MB that appears to being used in placed of the previous "Username" Directory.

The size of the original "Username" Profile directory is approx. 18.8 GB.

Changing to a different profile has caused problems with file encryption (unable to decrypt), program settings, all user account passwords Windows Mail now blank, other problems with folder and file security settings, etc.

 

[albertz]

After looking around I found this suggestion to Method 3: Delete the error SID and create a new profile To delete the error SID and create a new profile, follow these steps:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...rofile-service-failed-the-logon-error-message

This basically deletes the older "Username" Profile from "System Properties" and the old "Username" Profile in the registry under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

Then you logon to the computer and create a new profile. However I'm not certain what it means by "Log on to the computer and create a new profile"? Will there still exist the old "Username" during login, login as administrator, etc.?

Also should the new profile be a different name than the old one, and then copy all the files from the old profile directly to the new profile directory?

There are also other earlier versions of the original "Username" profile folder that I think can be saved copied?

 

[ilikefree]

This tutorial might help

User Profile Error - Logged on with a Temporary Profile

 

[albertz]

This tutorial might help

User Profile Error - Logged on with a Temporary Profile

I'm looking at the tutorial most I'm aware read from other sites, however I haven't yet been able to find anything about if the .bak reg entry is deleted.

When I login using the username whose profile was corrupted. Vista appears to log me in using the temporary profile it created as I'm not able to access any of the encrypted files even though I'm logged in using the original username with the original profile directory.

Under C:\Users there are two profile folders

"originalusername" folder
"nameofpc.originalusername" folder

"originalusername" = the username of the corrupted profile
"nameofpc" = the PC's given name

Anyway I'm thinking there isn't anyway to access the old profile with the deleted .bak reg. entry and I'll need to created a new profile _ or _ there is a way but it's not well documented.