User profile service failed the logon

mackinacky

Hi, I was wondering if someone could help me out with a problem I'm having with my laptop and logging in to it.

I recently received an error message saying "User Profile Service service failed the logon" when I try to log in (Windows 7). I think this is due to the fact that I was running anti-software and shut down by accident. I have Googled some help and a number of sites advise to restart in safe mode (which I've done) and type "regedit" into the search box. This however brings up no results. I've logged in using the "Guest" profile that's also set up on my laptop and I can get into the registry editor that way to try to change the SID Key (S-1-5.....) by removing the .bak end of my profile long number, however this brings up another error message saying its unable to change the number. There are 3 long numbers which are all the same except one ends in -1000, one ends in -1000.bak and the other ends in -501 (I think) for my profile, the 'guest' profile and a 'temp' profile.

I cant find any advice as to what to do next as everyone else seems to have been able to fix their problem doing the above but for some reason I'm unable to change the .bak number and as I said, in safe mode the search results bring up no results when I type in regedit.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Mr. G

When you boot it, select "Start Windows to last best configuration) instead of "Start Windows Normally" if it gives you the option.

Read this

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947215

And look under Method 1.

mackinacky

Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately Method 1 is as described in my initial post, it wouldnt work for me.

I tried starting windows to last best configuration but that didnt solve the problem either

Steviemoyne

Try a system restore from one of the restore points, might fix the problem.

mackinacky

Thanks Stevie, tried that too but had no joy.

Looks like I'll need to bring it somewhere to get it sorted

Steviemoyne

Only other thing I can think of is create a new administrator account altogether using the hidden system administrator account that you can activate using the below steps.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/enable-the-hidden-administrator-account-on-windows-vista/

You could probably access the files from the broken account then, though I've never tried using the system administrator I have used method 2 of Mr. G's link and that worked. That was on a laptop that had this error constantly popping up ever week or so for one particular account.

mackinacky

Thanks Stevie

I have tried to create a new user account using method 2 in Mr. G's link but that didnt work either. I'll try again later using the link you have posted and see does this work.

bluferbl

I've fixed this a few times recently (but never got around to documenting how I did it). In a nutshell though you need to boot from something like Hiren's Boot CD and use an offline registry editor to promote the .bak version of one of the registry keys to be be the working version. I've seen at least three machines recently with this problem and the only way I managed to fix it was with bootable media.

If you Google the error message you'll info about what registry key needs to be edited. It may sound complicated but in reality it was an easy enough fix.