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

​

​

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.​

​

OR​

​

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

​

Windows 7: (Option Two at link)​

How to Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc​

​

Vista: (Option One at link)​

How to Create a Vista Recovery Disc​

​

​

​

​

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

​

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.​

​

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

​

D) Go to the STEP TWO section below.​

​

OR​

​

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​

​

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​

​

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.​

​

2. Open the Start menu.​

​

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

​

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

​

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

​

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

​

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.​

​

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

​

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.​

​

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.​

​

C) Continue on to step 8.​

​

​

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

​

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

​

​

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)​

​

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

​

12. Close regedit.​

​

13. Log off and log on.​

​

​

   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

 

[bear]

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.

No others. No others are even listed.

Interestingly, I ran a software recovery tool and even that doesn't find a c:\users\mike path. The files, most of which are unrecoverable, are listed under the path c:\?\

So is it really possible that it deleted these files when the profile could not load? I cannot understand why the files would disappear!

 

[Brink]

Sometimes when a user profile is corrupted, the files in the user folders may go with it. You might see if doing a repair install may be able to restore your user profile during the repair.

 

[calbee]

I followed the steps, but my user profile wasn't recreated when i logged off. do i have to restart the computer?

 

[Brink]

Hello Calbee, and welcome to Vista Forums.

If not, then try a System Restore using a restore point dated before you got this error. If this still dows not help, then you will need to create a new account and restore the user folder files afterwards from the warning in step 1. See: How to Create a New User Account in Vista.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[calbee]

thanks for the welcome

System restore was the first thing I did but that didn't work so i tried what to do in this thread.

for step 1, when i deleted the user profile, i didn't click on 'delete files' but on 'keep files' instead. was that the problem?

also, how do i restore the user folder files of the errored user profile onto another user profile?

 

[Brink]

No, "Keep file" wouldn't have made any difference.

In the new user account, you can copy the contents of the old account's C:\Users\(user-name) folders into the corresponding new account's user folders to have them back though.

 

[calbee]

just copy and paste?

would all my settings and stuff get copied too? should i just do that then? and delete the old user account/folder after?

 

[Brink]

Yes, you would just copy only the contents in all of the old user folders to the corresponding new user folders and not the folders or subfolders themselves. If everything checks out ok afterwards, then yes you can delete the old user folders.

 

[calbee]

so i have to:
a) make a new user
b) make identical folders in the new user's document folder
c) copy and paste the stuff from the old user's documents into the new user's
d) then delete the old user folder?

i can't just copy and paste the main parts of the folder (App Data, Contacts, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, etc.) into the new one?

 

[Brink]

Calbee,

After you create the new account and log on to it, all of the user folders will be created automatically for you. You will not have to create any new folders. What you are doing instead is to copy the file contents in them from the old user account into the same folders (already created) in your new user account. That's all.

 

[billp]

Hi,
New to this forum. I am having trouble with this"user profile was not loaded correctly" error message. It happens with more than one user account. (I have four accounts and I get this message on three of them at times. When I start my computer and open the account that I use the most it comes up properly, but when I go to any other account I get this message. I can do a restart right then and all accounts work fine and will stay fine as long as I do not log them off usually. Sometimes if an account is not used for several days the the message reappears. A restart will solve the problem again.
Also, I went to my registry to study how to do the steps in this tutorial and found that I do not have .bak at the end of the long number. Is this because I have not deleted the account yet or is it something else?
I would appreciate some guidance on fixing this problem. (Do I need to do each account individually or could I delete them all together?)
Thanks!
billp

 

[Brink]

Hello Billp, and welcome to Vista Forums.

You might see if doing a system restore at boot using a restore point dated before you had these errors may be able to fix this for you. If not, then try the tutorial for each user account one at a time.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[billp]

Not sure when the problem first started. It was several months ago for sure.
I would like to be sure that the missing .bak at the end of the S-1-5 number is not a problem before I try to do the steps in this tutorial. Thinking about doing one account and monitoring it for a day or two. Is the missing .bak of any significance?
billp

 

[billp]

Still waiting for answers about the missing .bak at the end of the long number. I would like to be sure that is not a problem before I do anything else.
Thanks (If I am posting in the wrong place let me know where I should be.)
billp

 

[Brink]

Sorry Bill, I thought you were testing and was going to post back.

If you do not have .bak on a listed user profile, then you will not be able to replace your current one with the .bak as in the tutorial. You would normallt only get the .bak if something triggered Vista to create a backup (.bak) of that user profile entry. Without a .bak, you might consider the System Restore.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[billp]

The problem with a system restore is that I don't know how far back I need to go. I'm sure it would be 4 or 5 months and I'm not sure I want to do that yet. That would be a large amount of back-up to do first. What would happen if I just deleted a couple of accounts and opened new ones in their place? (That might be a "dumb" question but I'm not too much of a computer whiz.)
billp

 

[Brink]

Bill,

You might see if a repair install is an option for you. You will not lose anything.

 

[billp]

If I read the tutorial correctly I cannot do a repair install because my DVD does not have SP2 on it . It's the one that came with the computer before the SP's were out.
billp

 

[Brink]

Bill,

Ok. As a test, create a new adminsitrator account and see if it you are able to log on to it without this error. If so, then you can just create new user accounts to replace the other ones with and delete the old ones after copying what you want from them into the new ones.

If you still get the error with the new account, then it looks like you will need to do a clean reinstall of Vista instead.

 

[billp]

OK
When I first started talking about this on this forum I created a new administrator account to do a little testing with. Here is what went on for the last few minutes:
First, I opened the new account and I got the "Your user profile was not loaded correctly" error message.
Next I immediately did a restart. I then opened all my accounts to see what would happen. Each one opened and works normally. Right now I have 5 open accounts that work like they should. Based on past events, if I log out of one or more of them then the next time I try to open on I get the error message again on that account. I think I'll leave thing like they are for a while. Maybe a system restore later on. ???
billp