Re: Administrator profile missing; Restore system do not function
"Bea" <DeleteQueen@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5472A554-934D-4F4C-AF36-1A8336A53A1F@microsoft.com...
>I have Windows XP Media Center Edition:
>
> I have to redo my question regarding my pc problem. I am such a newbie on
> this site, and a newbie pc user too.
>
> Here it goes: I uninstalled my webroot spyware. Then restarted laptop.
> When I logged on (administrator account) I got this message, "windows
> cannot load the users profile but has logged you on with the default
> profile". Detail "The system can not find the file specified."
>
> On the "default profile" that windows logged me on, I can not acces my
> administrator profile desktop, and all my documents, and also all the
> programs installed.
>
> I tried to use Restore system, it doesn't work. I used to be able
> to do system restore. I am hoping that if I restored the system prior to
> 9/26 I can recover all docs, desktop associated with my administrator
> profile.
>
> I can't do any download, or send email using that laptop. Because it said
> that I don't have administrator privilege.
>
> I am using another laptop which unfortunately, doesn't mirror the contents
> of the problem laptop.
>
> Please help all my work related documents are in that laptop.
Hi Bea,
I've solved most of my problem with the profiles and added a note for you in
my thread, and will repeat it here for completeness. Your situation sounds
a little different as you say your laptop created a default settings profile
for you and changed your account's privileges at the same time. As your
account and your profile are not the same thing this is rather odd. In my
case, my user name and password and the privilages that go with them were
not changed, they were simply directed at a new profile folder. Because
there was already a profile folder with the original name, it had to give
the temporary one a suffix. This meant I could not have my profile with its
usual name, because the account itself had been reassigned to the temp one.
So to get things right I had to delete the temp profile completely, so that
there was then no profile associated with my account at all. Then change
the name of my original and now, orphan, profile so that there was no folder
with my account name on in the local users list. Then when I logged on with
my normal account it makes me another default profile, but this time with
the proper name. Then all I had to do was empty this profile and copy my
original one into it. Simple when you twig how it works.
If your account really was changed from administrator to simply user. It
should be straight forward for you to change it back, as an administrator or
the administrator in safe mode. You could also, via the security tab of
your profile's properties sheet, at the same time change the profile folder
and all its subfolders, so that administrator, administratorS and yourself
have full permission, and just to make sure, take ownership via the advanced
tab, of your profile folder and all its subfolders (the bottom tick box).
If once you have everything working again, you then want to up your security
and tick the 'make my folders private' again, you can do this in the normal
my computer dialogue.
Here's what I put in the other thread:
I am not entirely sure what your problem is or even whether you are using
XPHome or Pro, but I have found it quite confusing coming to grips with the
difference between profiles, accounts, and identities, and consequently with
the sequence that one has to follow to set up a new account (or keep the old
one) and get the right files into it.
Are you saying that you can't log on other than in safe mode, or that you
can log on but are denied access to your files because they are now in a
different profile to which your new account has no permission because it is
not an administrator account? Also, was your old account actually the
computer's built in Administrator, account or was it a separate one that you
made, and thus is one of the AdministratorS plural as opposed to THE
Administrator. If your old profile is only set to be accessed by THE
Administrator, then you will need to add Adminstrators in the plural to its
permissions table. Unfortunately, it can be quite confusing dealing with
the various dialogues under the Security tab, and you may need someone to
help you with them.
Anyhow, even if you do have the permissions it can still be confusing
getting the profile attached to the right account. When you create a new
account in Control Panel, it initially has no profile. When you log in to
your new account the first time a set of folders is created for your
profile, but with a hidden security code that uniquely associates them with
that account. So even if you make another account with the same name and
password, it won't be associated with the old profile folders, and instead,
windows makes you a new profile with default settings. If you used the same
name as your original account, without deleting your original, then the new
one is given an extension number to distinguish it.
That's what happened to me, and I got a bit of a list of extra default
profiles before I twigged what was going on! By which time I had to have a
good look at all the properties sheets size and files data to make sure
which profiles belonged to which accounts and which to none at all...
So anyhow to cut a long story short, I've got things back in order now, and
if your is not a more fiddly permissions issue, the same may work for you:
So sequence is:
In a spare admin account;
Rename original profile folder in MyComputer\C\Docs and Settings;
Delete any new profiles xp has made for you that have very little in (on my
laptop these are all about 850k);
Log on in normal way with your original user name and password;
Log off when xp has finished building a new profile with your original
profile's name;
Log back in to spare admin ac;
In docs and sets, empty the new profile folder completely (to get rid of
some of the default links you may have removed in your real profile) so that
it just leaves the empty profile folder with your name on;
Copy (not move, you may need them again) all the contents of your original
but renamed folder, into the now empty new profile folder. If your
ntuser.dat and ntuser.dat.log files are still serviceable, this should
recreate your original profile.
A good sign that you are headed in the right direction is that this may take
several minutes, depending on how much stuff is in your profile. In my case
there were Google Earth cache files and Picassa photo database files which
were 400Mb odd, which slowed the copying down rather.
(If you have one, also copy all the contents to a backup drive as well; then
delete the original, if you are pushed for space. You will now appreciate
its probably a good idea to keep a back up profile somewhere!)
I found that after I had done this everything worked OK except that my
normal desktop picture did not come up on its own. In the main folder of my
profile is a file marked 'theme'. Just clicking on this got it all loaded
properly.
So that's it from my end. I still have one phantom account that I need to
track down, but it is not, thankfully, mine!
And you're right: this relatively simple process took days to suss out. You
never stop learning with MS!
Good luck,
S
Links I have found useful:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810881
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555473
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?f=62...sid=1a1e5e5b66cd4790a1f11595c1f713d1&start=15
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc722901.aspx
I still have one account which seems to exist only in the land of
(ctrl-alt-delete)x2 though. Can't even see it anywhere to delete it!
S