Windows 10 Profile has been reset

cormie

Hey folks, I've been having trouble with my Dell XPS L502X giving me BSOD's for a few months. I recently got a new XPS 9560 and today was looking into downloading the creators upgrade of w10 and was checking an old USB key. The usb key looked like it had a bootable version of Windows 8 on it.

After a while, I got another BSOD and started up the laptop again, forgetting to remove the USB key. It prompted to continue with the installation of Windows 8 which of course I said NO to and restarted and took out the USB stick.

After this, I kept getting BSOD's when it tried to restart. It said it was configuring windows and then another BSOD. I tried to do a system restore but it said there was no restore points, I can't remember if I said to reset windows or not, but I eventually got it started back, but now my profile seems to have been completely reset. The log in username and password is the same, but it's not my profile, the stuff I had on my desktop isn't there, the resolution is different etc, it looks like a brand new install!!

Thankfully, I checked the C drive and the files I seem to be missing are actually still there, if I navigate to the user profile I seem to be logged in to, and go to desktop, I can see the files that were there this morning, but they aren't on the actual desktop I see.

Also, when I start windows I get a "We can't sign into your account" popup and it suggests signing out, but I've tried this several times with no luck.

If anyone has any advice, it would be greatly appreciated!

scamalert

happened to me recently out of blue left pc at login for like 10 mins and after logging in was prompted with same message and empty screen, did hard restart and was able to log back in with no issues,after doing google search found quite few topics on same issue,some of them are due to anniversary update and other stuff like that.

anyway heres more in-depth description if its any help or use.

I have seen this before. Windows loads an empty profile instead of the existing one, something previously seen with Windows 7, and now Windows 10 as well, but the operating system has not changed that much in this aspect.
One thing that can work is removing the affected profile from the profile list in the registry:

• HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

The problem profile will have two folders starting with the same GUID, one with a .bak extension and one without. Rename the one without the .bak extension to something else (add a .tmp extension, for example), then remove the .bak extension from the one that has it (which has your correct profile settings).
Reboot and log in as you normally would. Your settings should be back to normal. This “problem†is described in full in this blog post:
How to fix: Windows 7 loads default instead of user-modified profile wiping off all settings, files, email accounts, bookmarks

cormie

Thanks a lot for such a fast reply. I think I followed your instructions, but it didn't work. Looking back in the regedit now, I see 3 folders now instead of 2, after the S1518,19 & 20 folders. The one with .bak at the end has the correct username, the other 2, one with .tmp which I think was from me renaming it has C:users/temp, then another one with no .bak or .tmp at the end has C:users/temp/desktop-f209t94

Not sure what to do now.

There is a chance that the BSOD earlier deleted all my personal settings anyway as this has been happening the odd time when I'd get a BSOD, it has affected some settings on thunderbird, firefox, rainlendar and winamp, seems to be whatever I have open at the time of the BSOD.

Maybe I could try again, but I'm not sure which to rename above now..

cormie

Ok, I've tried this a few times now and the same thing keeps happening, a new profile is added and it still says I can't sign in to the account

scamalert

well as said its not my solution reboot worked for me the, instructions are from google search,did you try admin login,should show all profiles and going from there,would be my logical step.

cormie

It appears I'm logging into the correct account. It's got the same username, requires the same password etc and I think it's admin access too? It just appears to have lost everything

scamalert

wouldnt say its lost,look at vids on the side since this one think guides same process as you did:

cormie

Thanks again, but still no luck. I've a feeling this has something to do with how other programs would have their settings reset after a BSOD on the machine, so I think the BSOD messed up with something more than what these fixes are addressing.

I think I'll just need to set up a new profile and transfer all the files and settings over

ninja 12

cormie wrote: »

Thanks again, but still no luck. I've a feeling this has something to do with how other programs would have their settings reset after a BSOD on the machine, so I think the BSOD messed up with something more than what these fixes are addressing.

I think I'll just need to set up a new profile and transfer all the files and settings over

The exact same thing happened to me a while ago .

None of the fixes helped so I resigned myself to setting up a new profile and copying everything over .

Over the next couple of days I had limited time to do this .

Eventually I booted my PC to finalise setting up the new profile and tried the old one a last time .

To my surprise , everything was back to normal .
I never found out what caused it .

Very odd behavior from windows

cormie

This is killing me here!

The laptop this is happening with is my current one which I've just upgraded to a new one. I was planning to swap the 1TB one in my current one (SSD bought separately recently) with the 500GB SSD in the new one, so I may as well do that now, but I'll need to backup the 1TB one to a 2TB external HDD I have, and then install w10 on both and start from scratch again.

I believe the creators update was released just today. I'm not sure if the ISO on the windows 10 iso download page is the creators one or not though, is there any way to tell? I don't want to have to do an upgrade again!

cormie

cormie wrote: »

I believe the creators update was released just today. I'm not sure if the ISO on the windows 10 iso download page is the creators one or not though, is there any way to tell? I don't want to have to do an upgrade again!

Filename is Win10_1703_EnglishInternational_x64.iso

cormie

Thanks for that. I downloaded and installed it from a USB stick, didn't check the filename beforehand, but it appears it's definitely the creators edition now after the install

JP Liz V1

How do I do a system restore for Windows 10 please, sorry for asking in this thread but hoping for help as wifi broadband on but no google chrome or internet explorer working and not sure what I did so hoping restore can fix

cormie

In my searching on the above, I found out System restore on W10 is turned off by default, so if you didn't actually manually set it on to begin with, unfortunately this probably won't be an option for you ;(