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

Grunt,

I would always recommend installing the Windows Updates to keep your computer up to date and more secure. If you have a lot at once, you might only install a few at a time to avoid potential conflicts. I would not use any driver updates from Windows Updates though. Instead you should get this directly from the manufacturer's website.

you haven't answered my question about what's being done though. does everyone with a copy of vista have the potential to run into this problem? I don't mean to sound like a disgruntled customer wanting his money back, but after having only used vista for 2 weeks, i'm forced to reinstall the whole OS. that's the thing about first impressions, you only get to make one. think i might just revert back to xp. it's by no means flawless, but at least i know how to work it. Thanks Brink.

Grunt,

Unfortunately that is a question that only Microsoft can answer. My guess is that the answer will be Windows 7.

I would recommend to keep good backups and restore points to make fixing this easy if need be again.

Sorry,
Shawn

but i've tried restoring my computer and it didn't work, even i restored it to year zero it didn't work. don't worry about me shawn, you probably won't have to see me again, going back to xp.

grunt.

Grunt, this is not a common error to get unless something is corrupting the user profile. Hopefully a clean reinstall of Vista should resolve this for you if you wanted to try it before going back to XP.

This morning I had occasion to use the GUEST log-in; have not used it in a long time. Sure enough GUEST would not load, giving me the message which is the subject here. However, I only have the problem with GUEST, my only other administrator account works fine.

I have literally spent all the day with this trying what was suggested here in the tutorial and other suggestions obtained from the web, all to no avail.

I do not have anything in my profile list in the registry which ends in .back but I have not renamed anything either, just changed REF and STAT values to 0. Did a system restore which did not help but that is moot since I don't know when the problem started; also did a STARTUP repair.

I've read a lot about why not to use GUEST and that is all good and fine but the point is that it came with system, worked fine for a while anyway but now it does not and nothing other than a clean install
seems to be the cure; to me that's ridiculous. While I'm running HOME PREMIUM on my PC, it works just fine on my laptop with ULTIMATE.

Hi Hdbg62,

I suppose that you can try a Repair (upgrade) install to see if that can fix it for you other than a clean install.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Forgot to mention that I can't even log on with a new standard user account which I created.

Well, I can't do the upgrade to the ULTIMATE, only a clean install; "YOU CANNOT UPGRADE FROM A STAGED BUILD TO A NON-STAGED BUILD." Both HOME PREMIUM AND ULTIMATE are SP1. The ULTIMATE which I installed on my laptop would do an upgrade on the PC and even though I got a couple of spare keys, don't know what can of worms I'd be opening by doing that. Neither can I create any new standard or administrative users which are able to log on; even the built-in Administrator is logged in only with the default profile, as for myself, the only other administrator account, I can log in just fine. However, just one account makes me nervous as a wet hen, what if there is another problem popping up and destroying this account? To put it mildly, I think it's absolutely ridiculously for this problem not to have a cure other than a re-install.

I agree hdbg62, but with the unknown source of the corruption, it may be best to reinstall to avoid a chance of it crashing completely leaving you with no easy way to recover your files.