Windows 7: Windows resetting startup settings to defaults

OK I'm not sure what happened but I'll try and explain. So last night I shut down my computer like normal and this morning I started up the computer like normal and it looked like everything was fine. The swirling windows logo showed up like it should but right after that it said windows is preparing to start a new session or something along those lines.



After logging in it seemed everything was set to default, all my programs and files were there but everything was reset. When I clicked on the start button you usually get a list of recently used programs above the list all programs button but there was nothing there. Also the task bar was empty as well. I did a restore and it seemed to fix the problem but I'm just wondering why it would do that just right out of the blue. Thanks for taking the time to help me out.

Hi Lusankya, did you sign in with a new or different User Account than previously?
That would give you the initial windows settings rather than any customizations you made which are often specific to an account.

Nope I logged in using my account (the only one setup on the machine) like I normally do.