Vista - how does a User Profile get corrupted, and what it is the REAL fix?

Some of my user accounts suddenly won't start properly, and users get a
"temporary" view of Vista until the "administrator" (haaaa haaaa haaaa,
that's me!) comes riding to the rescue.

How does a User Profile get screwed up by normal activity? (By "normal", I
mean anything that can be done with the available user commands, excluding
cmd.exe.)

The "fix" suggested (to create a new user account and copy all but three
hidden files -- out of the five or size that all share the same root, and
none of which are EXACTLY named the same as the docs suggest! -- to the new
account) is, IMHO, half-baked, but I'd do it if it worked, and gladly,
except...

It doesn't work.

Any help?
Thanks,
d


--
David C. Oshel mailto:dcoshel@pobox.com
Cedar Rapids, IA http://grikdog.blogspot.com
"Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!" - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred
E. Bester's _The_Demolished_Man_

The most common cause of of repeated user profile corruption (in my service
experience) is a failing hard drive with repeated instances of bad sectors
developing. I suggest running chkdsk /r

"David C. Oshel" <dcoshel@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:e1FeeGgiHHA.4844@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Some of my user accounts suddenly won't start properly, and users get a
> "temporary" view of Vista until the "administrator" (haaaa haaaa haaaa,
> that's me!) comes riding to the rescue.
>
> How does a User Profile get screwed up by normal activity? (By "normal",
> I mean anything that can be done with the available user commands,
> excluding cmd.exe.)
>
> The "fix" suggested (to create a new user account and copy all but three
> hidden files -- out of the five or size that all share the same root, and
> none of which are EXACTLY named the same as the docs suggest! -- to the
> new account) is, IMHO, half-baked, but I'd do it if it worked, and gladly,
> except...
>
> It doesn't work.
>
> Any help?
> Thanks,
> d
>
>
> --
> David C. Oshel mailto:dcoshel@pobox.com
> Cedar Rapids, IA http://grikdog.blogspot.com
> "Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!" - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred
> E. Bester's _The_Demolished_Man_

"GTS" <x@y.net> wrote in message
news:%2373RShgiHHA.1216@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> The most common cause of of repeated user profile corruption (in my
> service experience) is a failing hard drive with repeated instances of bad
> sectors developing. I suggest running chkdsk /r

Well, that's not it. Any other ideas, people?

d





>
> "David C. Oshel" <dcoshel@pobox.com> wrote in message
> news:e1FeeGgiHHA.4844@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Some of my user accounts suddenly won't start properly, and users get a
>> "temporary" view of Vista until the "administrator" (haaaa haaaa haaaa,
>> that's me!) comes riding to the rescue.
>>
>> How does a User Profile get screwed up by normal activity? (By "normal",
>> I mean anything that can be done with the available user commands,
>> excluding cmd.exe.)
>>
>> The "fix" suggested (to create a new user account and copy all but three
>> hidden files -- out of the five or size that all share the same root, and
>> none of which are EXACTLY named the same as the docs suggest! -- to the
>> new account) is, IMHO, half-baked, but I'd do it if it worked, and
>> gladly, except...
>>
>> It doesn't work.
>>
>> Any help?
>> Thanks,
>> d
>>
>>
>> --
>> David C. Oshel mailto:dcoshel@pobox.com
>> Cedar Rapids, IA http://grikdog.blogspot.com
>> "Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!" - Duffy Wyg&, in
>> Alfred E. Bester's _The_Demolished_Man_
>

David C. Oshel wrote:
>
> "GTS" <x@y.net> wrote in message
> news:%2373RShgiHHA.1216@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> The most common cause of of repeated user profile corruption (in my
>> service experience) is a failing hard drive with repeated instances of
>> bad sectors developing. I suggest running chkdsk /r
>
> Well, that's not it. Any other ideas, people?
>
> d
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> "David C. Oshel" <dcoshel@pobox.com> wrote in message
>> news:e1FeeGgiHHA.4844@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>> Some of my user accounts suddenly won't start properly, and users get
>>> a "temporary" view of Vista until the "administrator" (haaaa haaaa
>>> haaaa, that's me!) comes riding to the rescue.
>>>
>>> How does a User Profile get screwed up by normal activity? (By
>>> "normal", I mean anything that can be done with the available user
>>> commands, excluding cmd.exe.)
>>>
>>> The "fix" suggested (to create a new user account and copy all but
>>> three hidden files -- out of the five or size that all share the same
>>> root, and none of which are EXACTLY named the same as the docs
>>> suggest! -- to the new account) is, IMHO, half-baked, but I'd do it
>>> if it worked, and gladly, except...
>>>
>>> It doesn't work.
>>>
>>> Any help?
>>> Thanks,
>>> d
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> David C. Oshel mailto:dcoshel@pobox.com
>>> Cedar Rapids, IA http://grikdog.blogspot.com
>>> "Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!" - Duffy Wyg&, in
>>> Alfred E. Bester's _The_Demolished_Man_
>>
>

Power interrupted during logon / logoff, registry corruption via bad
application install / uninstall, virus, spyware, hacked, network dropout
during logon / logoff (roaming profiles), server issues (roaming
profiles), someone accidentally deleted a file.

List can be exhastive. But I would be looking towards a stray
application install / uninstall, or virus / spyware. Check for errors
in the event log. Basically you'll need to recreate the profiles, but
the logs may be able to indicate what did it, so you can avoid it in future.

Personally I'd create a new profile, and only copy desktop icons, my
docs, *.pst + *.nk2 (or windows mail datastore) accross to the new file.
That way if it was the registry or a bad app install, the parts
(registry / appdata\roaming, appdata\local etc) don't come across again

Steve

There are many things that can cause it, bad hard drive, bad RAM, weak power
supply, virus activity, user error, poorly programmed application, etc.,
etc.. There should be many errors in the event logs which may point you in
the right direction.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca


"David C. Oshel" <dcoshel@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:e1FeeGgiHHA.4844@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Some of my user accounts suddenly won't start properly, and users get a
> "temporary" view of Vista until the "administrator" (haaaa haaaa haaaa,
> that's me!) comes riding to the rescue.
>
> How does a User Profile get screwed up by normal activity? (By "normal",
> I mean anything that can be done with the available user commands,
> excluding cmd.exe.)
>
> The "fix" suggested (to create a new user account and copy all but three
> hidden files -- out of the five or size that all share the same root, and
> none of which are EXACTLY named the same as the docs suggest! -- to the
> new account) is, IMHO, half-baked, but I'd do it if it worked, and gladly,
> except...
>
> It doesn't work.
>
> Any help?
> Thanks,
> d
>
>
> --
> David C. Oshel mailto:dcoshel@pobox.com
> Cedar Rapids, IA http://grikdog.blogspot.com
> "Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!" - Duffy Wyg&, in Alfred
> E. Bester's _The_Demolished_Man_

I concur that RAM and malware would be the next items to suspect.

"GTS" <x@y.net> wrote in message
news:%2373RShgiHHA.1216@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> The most common cause of of repeated user profile corruption (in my
> service experience) is a failing hard drive with repeated instances of bad
> sectors developing. I suggest running chkdsk /r
>
> "David C. Oshel" <dcoshel@pobox.com> wrote in message
> news:e1FeeGgiHHA.4844@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Some of my user accounts suddenly won't start properly, and users get a
>> "temporary" view of Vista until the "administrator" (haaaa haaaa haaaa,
>> that's me!) comes riding to the rescue.
>>
>> How does a User Profile get screwed up by normal activity? (By "normal",
>> I mean anything that can be done with the available user commands,
>> excluding cmd.exe.)
>>
>> The "fix" suggested (to create a new user account and copy all but three
>> hidden files -- out of the five or size that all share the same root, and
>> none of which are EXACTLY named the same as the docs suggest! -- to the
>> new account) is, IMHO, half-baked, but I'd do it if it worked, and
>> gladly, except...
>>
>> It doesn't work.
>>
>> Any help?
>> Thanks,
>> d
>>
>>
>> --
>> David C. Oshel mailto:dcoshel@pobox.com
>> Cedar Rapids, IA http://grikdog.blogspot.com
>> "Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!" - Duffy Wyg&, in
>> Alfred E. Bester's _The_Demolished_Man_
>

FWIW - Here's what I did to screw up my Guest Account on a post dated here on
4/16. I renamed it to "Guest& Son" while logged on as Guest. It must have
changed the User Folder name, too, and then gave me that temp user profile
whenever I'd log back into Guest&Son. I tried renaming the account back to
"Guest" but that did not fix it until I went into the C:\Users and renamed
the Guest& Son folder to "Guest." Everything came back as it should be
without copying files to a new "Guest" account (which wouldn't work with
Guest anyway).

"David C. Oshel" wrote:

>
> "GTS" <x@y.net> wrote in message
> news:%2373RShgiHHA.1216@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> > The most common cause of of repeated user profile corruption (in my
> > service experience) is a failing hard drive with repeated instances of bad
> > sectors developing. I suggest running chkdsk /r
>
> Well, that's not it. Any other ideas, people?
>
> d
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> > "David C. Oshel" <dcoshel@pobox.com> wrote in message
> > news:e1FeeGgiHHA.4844@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> >> Some of my user accounts suddenly won't start properly, and users get a
> >> "temporary" view of Vista until the "administrator" (haaaa haaaa haaaa,
> >> that's me!) comes riding to the rescue.
> >>
> >> How does a User Profile get screwed up by normal activity? (By "normal",
> >> I mean anything that can be done with the available user commands,
> >> excluding cmd.exe.)
> >>
> >> The "fix" suggested (to create a new user account and copy all but three
> >> hidden files -- out of the five or size that all share the same root, and
> >> none of which are EXACTLY named the same as the docs suggest! -- to the
> >> new account) is, IMHO, half-baked, but I'd do it if it worked, and
> >> gladly, except...
> >>
> >> It doesn't work.
> >>
> >> Any help?
> >> Thanks,
> >> d
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> David C. Oshel mailto:dcoshel@pobox.com
> >> Cedar Rapids, IA http://grikdog.blogspot.com
> >> "Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!" - Duffy Wyg&, in
> >> Alfred E. Bester's _The_Demolished_Man_
> >
>
>

"Steven Andrews" <applecontrolreset@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:O3$RYlkiHHA.4032@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> David C. Oshel wrote:
>>
>> "GTS" <x@y.net> wrote in message
>> news:%2373RShgiHHA.1216@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>> The most common cause of of repeated user profile corruption (in my
>>> service experience) is a failing hard drive with repeated instances of
>>> bad sectors developing. I suggest running chkdsk /r
>>
>> Well, that's not it. Any other ideas, people?
>>
>> d
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> "David C. Oshel" <dcoshel@pobox.com> wrote in message
>>> news:e1FeeGgiHHA.4844@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>>> Some of my user accounts suddenly won't start properly, and users get a
>>>> "temporary" view of Vista until the "administrator" (haaaa haaaa haaaa,
>>>> that's me!) comes riding to the rescue.
>>>>
>>>> How does a User Profile get screwed up by normal activity? (By
>>>> "normal", I mean anything that can be done with the available user
>>>> commands, excluding cmd.exe.)
>>>>
>>>> The "fix" suggested (to create a new user account and copy all but
>>>> three hidden files -- out of the five or size that all share the same
>>>> root, and none of which are EXACTLY named the same as the docs
>>>> suggest! -- to the new account) is, IMHO, half-baked, but I'd do it if
>>>> it worked, and gladly, except...
>>>>
>>>> It doesn't work.
>>>>
>>>> Any help?
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> d
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> David C. Oshel mailto:dcoshel@pobox.com
>>>> Cedar Rapids, IA http://grikdog.blogspot.com
>>>> "Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!" - Duffy Wyg&, in
>>>> Alfred E. Bester's _The_Demolished_Man_
>>>
>>
>
> Power interrupted during logon / logoff, registry corruption via bad
> application install / uninstall, virus, spyware, hacked, network dropout
> during logon / logoff (roaming profiles), server issues (roaming
> profiles), someone accidentally deleted a file.
>
> List can be exhastive. But I would be looking towards a stray application
> install / uninstall, or virus / spyware. Check for errors in the event
> log. Basically you'll need to recreate the profiles, but the logs may be
> able to indicate what did it, so you can avoid it in future.
>
> Personally I'd create a new profile, and only copy desktop icons, my docs,
> *.pst + *.nk2 (or windows mail datastore) accross to the new file. That
> way if it was the registry or a bad app install, the parts (registry /
> appdata\roaming, appdata\local etc) don't come across again
>
> Steve


Yeah, I sort of suspect those...

<RANT>Ok, Microsoft, maybe it's offtopic here, but I ran journalled HFS+
file systems for about four years with Mac OS X, and NEVER -- i.e., NOT
EVER, EVER! -- lost files or blew up my user accounts because of power loss,
power switch stupidity or anything else. IT. DOES. NOT. HAPPEN. Except on
Vista, XP, '95, 2000, NT... There is a bunch of programmers who can write
an operating system as sweet as Microsoft's Hearts game -- it's called
Ubuntu. If only...!</RANT>

Thanks for the advice. I'll take that as hardwon wisdom.
d

Vista should be able to repair itself. It gives ordinary users an algorithm
to do so (in the "Help" files), and that should be automated. Mac OS X
since Jaguar, with that klutzy journalled HFS+ file system, NEVER, EVER, NOT
ONCE boiled my users in their own oil the way Vista has.

d



"Kerry Brown" <kerry@kdbNOSPAMsys-tems.c*a*m> wrote in message
news:OuqL9UmiHHA.208@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> There are many things that can cause it, bad hard drive, bad RAM, weak
> power supply, virus activity, user error, poorly programmed application,
> etc., etc.. There should be many errors in the event logs which may point
> you in the right direction.
>
> --
> Kerry Brown
> Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
> http://www.vistahelp.ca
>
>
> "David C. Oshel" <dcoshel@pobox.com> wrote in message
> news:e1FeeGgiHHA.4844@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>> Some of my user accounts suddenly won't start properly, and users get a
>> "temporary" view of Vista until the "administrator" (haaaa haaaa haaaa,
>> that's me!) comes riding to the rescue.
>>
>> How does a User Profile get screwed up by normal activity? (By "normal",
>> I mean anything that can be done with the available user commands,
>> excluding cmd.exe.)
>>
>> The "fix" suggested (to create a new user account and copy all but three
>> hidden files -- out of the five or size that all share the same root, and
>> none of which are EXACTLY named the same as the docs suggest! -- to the
>> new account) is, IMHO, half-baked, but I'd do it if it worked, and
>> gladly, except...
>>
>> It doesn't work.
>>
>> Any help?
>> Thanks,
>> d
>>
>>
>> --
>> David C. Oshel mailto:dcoshel@pobox.com
>> Cedar Rapids, IA http://grikdog.blogspot.com
>> "Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!" - Duffy Wyg&, in
>> Alfred E. Bester's _The_Demolished_Man_
>

Most user profile issues are caused by faulty hardware in my experience.
Apple's generally have better quality hardware. That's one of the reasons
they cost more.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca


"David C. Oshel" <dcoshel@pobox.com> wrote in message
news:eTlXumBjHHA.4032@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Vista should be able to repair itself. It gives ordinary users an
> algorithm to do so (in the "Help" files), and that should be automated.
> Mac OS X since Jaguar, with that klutzy journalled HFS+ file system,
> NEVER, EVER, NOT ONCE boiled my users in their own oil the way Vista has.
>
> d
>
>
>
> "Kerry Brown" <kerry@kdbNOSPAMsys-tems.c*a*m> wrote in message
> news:OuqL9UmiHHA.208@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>> There are many things that can cause it, bad hard drive, bad RAM, weak
>> power supply, virus activity, user error, poorly programmed application,
>> etc., etc.. There should be many errors in the event logs which may point
>> you in the right direction.
>>
>> --
>> Kerry Brown
>> Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
>> http://www.vistahelp.ca
>>
>>
>> "David C. Oshel" <dcoshel@pobox.com> wrote in message
>> news:e1FeeGgiHHA.4844@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>>> Some of my user accounts suddenly won't start properly, and users get a
>>> "temporary" view of Vista until the "administrator" (haaaa haaaa haaaa,
>>> that's me!) comes riding to the rescue.
>>>
>>> How does a User Profile get screwed up by normal activity? (By
>>> "normal", I mean anything that can be done with the available user
>>> commands, excluding cmd.exe.)
>>>
>>> The "fix" suggested (to create a new user account and copy all but three
>>> hidden files -- out of the five or size that all share the same root,
>>> and none of which are EXACTLY named the same as the docs suggest! -- to
>>> the new account) is, IMHO, half-baked, but I'd do it if it worked, and
>>> gladly, except...
>>>
>>> It doesn't work.
>>>
>>> Any help?
>>> Thanks,
>>> d
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> David C. Oshel mailto:dcoshel@pobox.com
>>> Cedar Rapids, IA http://grikdog.blogspot.com
>>> "Tension, apprehension and dissension have begun!" - Duffy Wyg&, in
>>> Alfred E. Bester's _The_Demolished_Man_
>>
>