Windows 7: Cold Start Problems

I'm going to post this in the General Discussion forum because I don't know where else to start. If it needs to be moved, somebody please tell me.

Several times a week, upon morning start up, my computer fails to recognize me. Boot up takes a long time then I get a message "Preparing your Desktop". Finally the boot is completed and I get this message:

"C:\Windows\System 32\Config\System Profile\Desktop refers to a location that is un accessable. Perhaps it is somewhere else on your disk." Otherwise, the screen is black, but the Start button is active.

Well I looked at the above address and there is no file called "Desktop". I can log off several times, reboot a couple of times then everything is OK for the rest of the day.

I'm running Widows 7 in a 64 bit Dell Inspiron N17R laptop using IE8.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Propwash Pete

You could perform a System Restore to a point where the issue wasn't a problem, and see if that helps.

Otherwise you might have to Create a new user account and drag your files and icons over to their respective folder

The file should be there, it will be hidden, however.

Do you use any third party disk cleaner utility ? Is that auto directed to clean up your pc after two or three days, at night ? Sometimes an aggressive disk cleanup may cause such a problem .

No, I do not use a 3rd party disk cleaner utility.

The only restore point showing in my System Restore is from yesterday, Aug 1st. I have been having problems longer than that.

I created a new user account but I don't know what to do next. I don't know how to get all my files into the new user account.

If by some miricle I manage to transfer all my files to the new user account, should I delete the old user account?

Don't you just love dealing with stupid guys?

Right click an empty spot on the desktop, click view ... is 'show desktop icons' checked? If not, check it.

Here are the locations of the most common file folders that you'll need to copy over:

C:\Users\UserName\Documents

C:\Users\UserName\Pictures

C:\Users\UserName\Music

C:\Users\UserName\Desktop

Basically, with the newly created user, you can browse to each of the above folders (in place of UserName click the OLD UserName), copy the files from that folder, and paste them into the respective folder under your UserName