User Profile Error - Logged on with a Temporary Profile

How to Fix the Error "Your user profile was not loaded correctly! You have been logged on with a temporary profile." in Vista and Windows 7​

   Information

A user profile is a collection of settings that make the computer look and work the way you want it to for a user account. It contains the account's settings for desktop backgrounds, screen savers, pointer preferences, sound settings, and other features. User profiles ensure that your personal preferences are used whenever you sign in to Windows.

A user profile is different from a user account, which you use to sign in to Windows. Each user account has at least one user profile associated with it.

When you log on to Vista using a temporary profile (user account), and you receive this error message:

Your user profile was not loaded correctly! You have been logged on with a temporary profile.

Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off. Please see the event log for details or contact your administrator.

For more information, see:
A temporary profile is loaded after you log on to a Windows Vista-based system

   Tip

This problem usually occurs if the current user's profile was accidentally deleted from the system or got corrupted.

   Warning

If you have this error message below instead, then see: How to Fix the Error "The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded."

The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.

EXAMPLE: Error Message in Windows 7

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STEP ONE

Log On to the Computer as an Administrator

   Warning

You must be logged on to an administrator account using either step 1 or 2 below before you can move on to do the STEP TWO section below.

1. To Log on to another Administrator account​

NOTE: If you do not have another Administrator account, then proceed to step 2.​

A) Go to the STEP TWO section below.​

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OR​

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2. To Boot into Safe Mode for the built-in Administrator account​

NOTE: You may not need to enable the built-in Administrator account. If this was the only normal administrator account you had, then Safe Mode should automatically boot into the built-in Administrator account.​

   Tip

If you cannot boot into Windows and do not have a Windows installation DVD, then you can create and use the boot disc below to boot into Safe Mode with instead.

   Tip

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Windows 7: (Option Two at link)​

How to Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc​

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Vista: (Option One at link)​

How to Create a Vista Recovery Disc​

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A) Boot into Safe Mode (in Vista) or Safe Mode (in Windows 7).​

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B) If Safe Mode did not boot into the built-in Administrator​

account, then enable the built-in Administrator account. If it did , then go to step 2C.​

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C) Log off in Safe Mode, and then log on to the built-in Administrator account to logon with that account in Safe Mode.​

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D) Go to the STEP TWO section below.​

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OR​

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3. To Enable the Built-in Administrator account at Boot​

A) For how, see: How to Enable the Built-in Elevated "Administrator" Account from WinRE​

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B) When enabled, log in to the built-in Administrator account, and go to the STEP TWO section below for what you would like to do​

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STEP TWO

Delete the User Account Profile's SID Key

1. Backup anything that you do not want to lose in this user account's C:\Users\(user-name) profile folder, if the profile folder still exists, to another location, then delete the (user-name) profile folder.​

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2. Open the Start menu.​

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3. In the Start Menu search box, type regedit and press Enter.​

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4. If prompted by UAC, then click on Continue (Vista) or Yes (Windows 7).​

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5. In regedit, go to: (See screenshot below step 7)​

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

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6. In the left pane, click on one of the S-1-5..... folders (SID key) with the long number. (See screenshot below step 7)​

NOTE: It should have .bak at the end of it.​

A) In the right pane, look at the ProfileImagePath to see if this is the same user account that you deleted in step 1 above.​

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B) Repeat step 6 until you find the one that you deleted in step 1 above.​

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7. To Backup the Registry SID Key​

WARNING: You should backup this SID key to be safe in case you delete the wrong one in step 8 below.​

A) Right click on the SID key from step 6, and click on Export.​

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B) Type in a name and save the REG file to a safe location.​

NOTE: This is your backup. To Restore the Backup, right click on the REG backup file and click on Merge.​

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C) Continue on to step 8.​

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8. Right click on the SID key, from step 6 with bak at the end, and click on Delete. (see screenshot above)​

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9. Click on Yes to confirm deletion. (See screenshot below)​

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10. If there is another SID key with the exact same long number from step 6 for this user account without bak at the end, repeat step 7 first, then right click on this same SID key, and click on Delete. (see screenshot below step 7)​

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11. Click on Yes to confirm deletion. (See screenshot below step 9)​

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12. Close regedit.​

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13. Log off and log on.​

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   Note

After you log on to the computer, the profile folder you are having problems with is re-created. If not, then try a System Restore using a restore point dated before you got this error. If this still does not help, then you will need to create a new account and restore the user folder files from the backup created at step 1.

That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How To Perform a Repair Installation For Vista
• How to Do a System Restore in Vista
• How to Do a Startup Repair in Vista
• How to Do a Clean Install of Vista with a Upgrade Version
• How to Do a Clean Install with a Full Version of Vista
• How to Fix the Error "The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded."
• How to Change the User Folder Name of a User Profile in Windows 7
• How to Fix Windows 7 Logon Screen Showing Only "Other User" and Last Logged On User Icon

 

[maglib]

After it happened an obscene number of times. I've disabled User Account Controls and haven't had an issue since. I think the UAC was somehow changed in one of the updates some time in the past few months. It's all an issue with not having administrative rights and temp files from what I'm seeing although the temp files are there. Some type of circular issues?

 

[theresasophia]

Hi Brink,
wow, there are other people with this error, gives me hope.
Last night I went to bed, computer was switched on and online. When I looked in he morning, the screen was black, only the mouse arrow was on the screen. I tried to restart it and then all kinds of trouble happened. I was asked to type in the product key, windows would take an awful long time to load, "preparing your desktop" would show up and then, when fully loaded, I would get the news "Your user profile was not loaded correctly! You have been logged on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this computer will be lost when you log off. Please see the event log for details or contact your administrator."
I tried to press F8 when starting and did the whole recovery thing etc. and I even tried to restore the system, but there is no reference point available prior to the first time I restarted the System after the improper shutdown in the night. How can it happen that a whole profile gets deleted without sitting at the computer or doing anything?
I do not have access to anything that was before the "improper shutdown". I tried to run and antivirus system, it scanned all the data that I cannot access anymore, therefore all my pics and documents seem to be there somewhere. I only had one Administrator Profile on my computer, no roaming etc.
When I tried to start the computer in the regular mode, this temporary profile would still show up.

Does anyone know what happened here? And could anyone tell me what to do to access all my pictures, documents etc. again? (Lucky me, I haven't done a backup)

Thank you very much for your work here, looking forward to a reply soon.

 

[Brink]

Hello Therasa, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Have you already tried the STEP ONE section to see if you can gain access this way to perform the rest of the tutorial?

 

[theresasophia]

Hi there,

yes, I tried the first steps and when it came to deleting the long bak thing, it said it cannot delete it, an unknown error occured or something like that.
Well, I deleted the problematic profile now through computer and system properties and before I copied all my documents to my new admin profile. I hope this is a safe way as well and I won't get into trouble again in case some of the errors of the other profile are still somewhere on the harddisk?
Silly me, I did the copying from the temporary profile and now all is lost.

It is like starting all over again now with the new admin profile, a little bit a pain that all the documents, pictures and especially e-mail contacts are lost, but that's how it is.

Nevertheless, I found this forum very helpful and I thank you heaps for providing this kind of support here.

oh yes, and since this whole crash happened, My computer (laptop) does not detect the MAC keyboard and mouse that i attached via USB anymore. Strange. I cannot use them anymore. Do you have an idea why and how I could solve this?

theresa

 

[Brink]

Theresa,

I'm sorry to hear that you had to reinstall everything again.

If you have any drivers for the keyboard and mouse, you might see if installing or reinstalling them may be able to help. However the keyboard and mouse issue would be for another new thread instead though as to keep this one on topic.

 

[theresasophia]

hi,
the keyboard and mouse came without drivers, I just plugged them in and it worked. Not anymore though....
Alright, thank you very much for that.

 

[greeny]

Have this problem on daughter's computer. She is the only user. There are two user accounts listed, Owner (administrator) and Guest (but user accounts says guest account is off). There are three folders under C/Users/: Owner, Public, and Temp.

Since I have only one administrator account can I go directly to "STEP TWO Delete the User Adcount Profile" of the tutorial?

In STEP ONE, Item 1 is the other Administrator account you refer to the Built In Administrator?

 

[Brink]

Hello Greeny, and welcome to Vista Forums.

In STEP ONE, the 1st step can be either another normal administrator account or the built-in Administrator account. It doesn't matter.

Which account (user name) is giving you this error for? You would only be able to do the tutorial from within a administrator account. I would recommend that you backup anything that you do not want to lose to be safe though.

 

[greeny]

I do not know which account is giving error message. When computer is turned on I just get the "Your user profile was not loaded correctly, etc, etc." I suspect it is the owner (administrator) acount since only two ac****s are listed under user profiles, the owner account and the guest account. According to user accounts under control panel the guest account is turned off.

 

[Brink]

Greeny,

It would be for the default owner account then. You should be able to follow the tutorial as is then. You can try starting off at the STEP TWO section if the temp account is an administrator account as well.

 

[greeny]

Just another thought. If I do a clean install of Windows 7 do you think the problem wil go away? I am afraid to do a Vista upgrade install to Windows 7 because the problem might carry over.

 

[Brink]

Sure, if you format Vista and do a clean install of Windows 7 instead, that would solve the problem. I always prefer to do a clean install over a upgrade install. There's a lot less chance of something going wrong with a clean install. Be sure to have all of your Windows 7 drivers installation files for your devices downloaded, and anything that you do not want to lose backed up first though to make installing them easier after you finish installing Windows 7.

 

[sarki]

I bought my laptop with Windows Vista from Dell and had this error. I found similar instructions with less detail on Dell's support site. It told me to go into control panel to delete the corrupt profile which I did. But I was not warned about backing up files and I did not. As a result, I seem to be missing important documents and pictures. And I do not have a restore point from before the time the problem occured. Is there anyway I can recover the profile and more importantly the files? I searched the entire computer for the files and they appear to be gone. If this requires an undelete program , which is best?

Also, when I look at the profile list in regedit, I see four different S-1-5 folders, but only one, the last one, has a long number and non have .bat. So I am stuck as to what to do there.

 

[Brink]

Hello Sarki, and welcome to Vista Forums.

You will not be able to recover the profile, but if you have another user account that you can use, you might check to see if the old C:\Users\(user-name) user folder is still there to copy the files into your new account from.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[bear]

!

Brink-

I would very much appreciate your help.

Earlier today I was clearing some junk off my father's computer. He has one profile. I changed something in the registry thinking it would remove the popup about the UAC being turned off (I now realize a registry change is not even necessary to make this happen, doh!) After a reboot I got the same message this thread pertains to; could not load the user profile, temporary profile loaded.

I have tried everything in this thread and what I could find in google but it won't work. The problem I have that differs from anything I have found is this - I have created other admin accounts and they all show up under users in control panel; however, when I go to c:\users none of the accounts are there. They don't show up under regedit either.

I'm trying to save all the files he had saved to "my documents" but its like they have completely disappeared. I created a save point and tryed deleting his account. When I click "save data" before deleting his profile, nothing happens.

I don't understand where his files went! I understand that the profile won't load, but there is no way that means his files were deleted, right? There is no reason or function for these files to be missing. They are all I care about retaining but I have no idea where they are.

There are no system restore points prior to this problem. Also, I receive the "user profile error, log on with temp profile" no matter what profile i use, newly created or his old account. I have tryed everything I can find on the internet... do you have a suggestion?

Again, thank you for your guidance

 

[Brink]

Hello Bear, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Do you still remember exactly what you changed in the registry right before this happened?

The newly created user account will not show up at C:\Users until you have logged into first.

Have you already tried enabling the built-in Adminsitrator account in Safe Mode to see if you can do the tutorial in it to fix the problem?

Hope this helps some for now,
Shawn

 

[bear]

Hello Bear, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Do you still remember exactly what you changed in the registry right before this happened?

The newly created user account will not show up at C:\Users until you have logged into first.

Have you already tried enabling the built-in Adminsitrator account in Safe Mode to see if you can do the tutorial in it to fix the problem?

Hope this helps some for now,
Shawn

I changed only one variable in the registry but I can't figure out what it was. It was from a website and it was supposed to stop pop-up balloons in vista reminding that the UAC was off. This was stupid, I know, but the user files can't have just disappeared!

No accounts show up under c:\users

I enabled the built-in administrator account and did the tutorial in safe mode. When I tell it to save files to desktop before deleting the profile, no folder appears on the desktop.

Once I open up regedit (wont open unless I right click and run as administrator) and I go to the profile list, there is only one folder that ends in .bak - however, under profileimagepath it simply reads "c:\Users\User" as opposed to having "Mike" at the end of it. The other folders have extensions of "network service" "local service" and "system profile"

Again, I have no problem losing this profile - I just need the files that were saved under my documents. I can't find them and its frustrating. I know they have to be on there - the profile is corrupted but why would that delete the files? - so any help you can give me to find them would be great.

Again, thanks

 

[Brink]

Bear,

Try the methods in this tutorial instead to see if they may help.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/1...-failed-logon-user-profile-cannot-loaded.html

 

[bear]

Bear,

Try the methods in this tutorial instead to see if they may help.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/1...-failed-logon-user-profile-cannot-loaded.html

My issue is that once I reach the profile list, I find the s-1-5-21....bak file but under profileimagepath it says "C:\Users\User" literally. It should say "C:\Users\Mike" but that is simply not there. Similarly, the user name is never listed under c:\Users\ when I try to find the files to back up. (but of course the accounts are still available for choice on start up)

I tried the method anyway using the "c:\users\user" profileimage path and it did not work. Would running chkdsk do anything? I can't lose these files and I feel like they are still on the computer... just can't figure out how to access them. Any other ideas?

 

[Brink]

Do you not have any SID keys listed for the other user accounts with bak or not?

If not, then you might see if doing a repair install may help since you do not have any restore points to use.