Re: Lost user account
From: Shenan (shenans@hotmail.com)
Date: 07/24/02
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From: "Shenan" <shenans@hotmail.com> Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 23:13:17 -0500
Actually - pick the Profile you want to be yours and follow this advice:
You will need to logon with a user that is a "Computer Administrator". You
will have to do a bit of registry editing. If you have never done this
before, it can seem a little nerve wracking because everyone is always
warning you how dangerous it is to do so, and - they are right. So you will
want to follow the directions carefully.
I will warn you now that this will negate any changes you have made since
the restore. It will restore your settings for each of the users you change
in this manner to the way they were BEFORE the restore. Meaning any icons
you have added since then will most likely be gone(you could copy them back
manually in the documents and settings folders, but otherwise, they WILL BE
GONE..)
First thing you need to do is logon to the computer as either the original
administrator user or any user with administrator rights. In XP's
simplified language, that is a "Computer Administrator".
To make things easier on you, explore into the documents and settings
directory and write down all of the names you see there. Likely you see
something like:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users
C:\Documents and Settings\Default User
C:\Documents and Settings\Username1
C:\Documents and Settings\Username1.Computername
C:\Documents and Settings\Username2
C:\Documents and Settings\Username2.Computername
etc. No matter, write down each of the folders names directly under the
C:\Documents and Settings directory. You will need them later.
Now, you will need to run the Registry Editor. Click on START, go to RUN
and select it. In the RUN blank, type in "regedt32" without the quotes and
click on OK. This will bring up the Registry Editor. Basically, it will
look like Windows Explorer, with folders, etc. You are going to use it just
like you would Windows Explorer.
You will see a Plus(+) sign next to the folder labeled "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE".
Click on the Plus(+) sign. It will expand. Now under the
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" folder you will see several sub-folders. Click on the
Plus(+) sign next to "SOFTWARE". It will expand and you will se many
subfolders under it. You may need to scroll down a bit in this left hand
pane now, but do so and find the folder labeled "Microsoft" and click on the
Plus(+) sign next to it. Again, it will expand and you will see even more
folders under it(I can now see why this makes some people nervous.. heheh.)
Now you may have to scroll even further down in the left pane, but do so and
find the folder named "Windows NT" and click on the Plus(+) sign next to it.
Yes, it will expand and you will see a few more(possibly only one) folder(s)
under it(we are almost there.) Find the "CurrentVersion" folder and click
the Plus(+) sign to expand it. You guessed it, you will see even MORE
folders under this one. Again, you may have to scroll down in the left
pane, but find a folder named "ProfileList", you will need to expand this
folder as well(click on the Plus(+) sign next to it.)
Now this is the part where I cannot guide anyone EXACTLY. But it is not to
hard. What you see before you now, under the "ProfileList" folder is a
number of sub folders with names like
"S-1-5-21-1085031214-2111687655-725345543-1003" and
"S-1-5-21-1085031214-2111687655-725345543-1012". These are the folders you
have been looking for. Ignore the shorter folders, the one without the
nasty long names, they are built in accounts - DON'T MESS WITH THEM!
This part depends on your individual case. When you looked at your
documents and settings folder, you said you saw duplicates of your
usernames. I am thinking they cannot be EXACT duplicates and they were
closer to what I showed above with the "Username.SomeExtension". Perfect.
What you need to do now is click(once) on each of the subfolders of the
"ProfileList" folder, the ones with the big long nasty names(they are called
SID Numbers.) When you click on(once) one of the folders to select it, you
will see the right side pane change to show you the values under that
folder. The one you are concerned with is the "ProfileImagePath". You may
have to enlarge your window or do some scrolling to see its data, but this
is what you want to look at. If you are having trouble seeing what it's
data is, you can double-click on the "ProfileImagePath" name in the right
pane and it should load up another window showing you the value data. Just
press CANCEL to exit that window and NOT make any changes. What you are
looking for are any of the Value Data paths that seem to go to the
"%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\Username.SomeExtension" path. (Do not
worry, "%SystemDrive%" is Windows' way of keeping track of what drive letter
it should associate with your main root drive, where Windows *is*
installed.) When you find a path that has the "Username.SomeExtension" at
the end, here is what you want to do. Change it. Double click to open
it(if you have not already) and press your right arrow key or your "End" key
on your keyboard. That should bring you to the end of the line in the Value
Data area. Now user your backspace key, one click at a time, to erase
everything back to and including the period. Basically cnaging the Value
Data from "%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\Username.SomeExtension" to
"%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\Username". Once you have done this,
click OK. Do this for each of the SID Number folders until you have done it
for all usernames on your computer that were duplicated. Once you have
finished doing this for all necessary values, simply select "File" and
"Exit" from the top menu in the Registry Editor window.
Once this is done, you could navigate to the C:\Documents and Settings
folder and go through all of the longer username folders, copying anything
you want to keep into the shorter username folder. All that is left to do
then is log out. You do not HAVE to reboot... But I suggest doing so, it
will let your nerves relax a bit. *grin*
Once you have logged out/rebooted - log back in. Your profiles should be
restored to the way they were before the restore/problem.
-- Now, there is a shorter version of these instructions that can be found at http://www.jsiinc.com/ -> a FANTASTIC resource for this type of thing. Those instructions go something like this: If you loose Full Control permissions to your profile folder, in the %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings folder, Windows 2000 and Windows XP will create a new one the next time you log on. The new profile is named: UserName - if the older profile was deleted. UserName.ComputerName - if the old profile exists. UserName.ComputerName.000 - if UserName.ComputerName exists. UserName.ComputerName.001 - if UserName.ComputerName.000 exists. If the original profile exists, you can recover it: 1. Log on as a member of the Administrators group and grant your UserName Full Control of the original profile folder, sub-folders, and files. 2. Copy any documents, favorites, cookies, etc.. from the current profile, and any intermediate profiles, to the original profile. Do NOT copy Desktop.ini. 3. Use the Registry Editor to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. 4. In each SID sub-key, inspect the ProfileImagePath value name, a REG_EXPAND_SZ data type, for a string that contains your UserName. It will look something like %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\UserName.ComputerName. You can use the Find function to locate it. 5. Change the data value to %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\UserName 6. Delete all your BAD profile folders, like %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\UserName.ComputerName, %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\UserName.ComputerName.000, etc.. When you log on, your profile will be restored. -- Follow either version, whichever is easier for you to understand. I would prefer the JSI instructions myself, but I have been doing this for a long time - so they feel more natural to me. Hopefully nothing got messed up when you did this and maybe it fixed your problem! -- Shenan "Steve Schwab" <> wrote in message :... > I'm not sure I am in the right group but maybe someone > can help me anyways. I was downloading a file from a > newsgroup on Earthlink.net. I left the pc to eat & when I > came back it was at the welcome screen. I tried to log on > with out success so I restatred the pc. I logged on & I > had a totally different user setup. All my files are gone > & my settings are different. I can look under Documents > & Settings & there is my old user folder, Steve along > with a new one named Steve.schwab which is my original > user name followed by a perioc & the computers name. How > can I get back to my original user or at least get my > desktop, email settings, files.... back??? This is most > frustrating! > Thanks for the help. SAS
- Next message: Steve Lardieri: "Re: Hotmail freezes on Other User Accounts"
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- In reply to: Steve Schwab: "Lost user account"
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