You have been logged into a temporary profile

[Lordbob75]

Hey all.

I have started encountering a weird problem on both my desktop and laptop. Every now and then, when I log in, it says Loading Desktop instead of Welcome, and it logs me into a temp profile. The action center says to check the monitor (I don't remember which one), but nothing is there.
Any ideas? Solutions?
Thanks in advance.

~Lordbob

 

[Brink]

Hi Lordbob,

It should be the same as in Vista.

User Profile Error - Logged on with a Temporary Profile - Vista Forums

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Lordbob75]

Shawn, this solutions seems to fix a permanent problem. My problem occurs randomly (as far as I can tell. I will start paying more attention).

There is nothing in the event log either... I'm really lost on this.

As I said, sometimes it works just fine.

~Lordbob

 

[sup3rsprt]

It's an annoying issue that a lot of people have seen (except for me, oddly enough). So I've heard, normally you can just logout and back in again.

Do you have a password set on your user account or is it set to login automatically? It must be a bug. Windows can't keep up with itself so it loads a temporary profile.

 

[Lordbob75]

It's an annoying issue that a lot of people have seen (except for me, oddly enough). So I've heard, normally you can just logout and back in again.

Do you have a password set on your user account or is it set to login automatically? It must be a bug. Windows can't keep up with itself so it loads a temporary profile.

Password. And if I log out and back in, it just happens again.

~Lordbob

 

[vasujain]

well if the problem is on 2 computers it cant be hardware related...i guess it must be some file or some property which is same on both the laptop ad desktop....


any tweak you have done common on both systems? or u may have a file shared which was infected?

as of me these can be the reasons...do have a look on these...

 

[Lordbob75]

well if the problem is on 2 computers it cant be hardware related...i guess it must be some file or some property which is same on both the laptop ad desktop....


any tweak you have done common on both systems? or u may have a file shared which was infected?

as of me these can be the reasons...do have a look on these...

Entirely possible. It may also be an issue with the RC. I never had it with the Beta. It's not a big deal, so I will wait until RTM comes out, and hopefully the problem with be gone.

~Lordbob

 

[Lee]

Just logged off and back on to see if there was the same problem with mine (cannot remember seeing this), and no problem. Went on Bing and Google and at present unable to fine a solution to your problem. Hope it isn't causing any real problems for you.

 

[somersetsimon]

Temporary profile problem

Just logged off and back on to see if there was the same problem with mine (cannot remember seeing this), and no problem. Went on Bing and Google and at present unable to fine a solution to your problem. Hope it isn't causing any real problems for you.

Help! I've been using Windows 7 for a couple of days and this problem has been driving me mad. At random times, when a user logs in, it comes up with a temporary profile. This is all on a single machine with 4 user accounts (2 of which are admin). The only cure is a reboot. It's bad enough when it's my account or my wife's, but my children shouldn't have to know how to sort this out :-/

I was using Vista for a couple of years on the machine and never had this problem.

When I've searched for the problem on the net, the official Microsoft response seems to cover permanently corrupted profiles. That is obviously not the problem as it goes for long periods without any problems.

 

[Lordbob75]

Hello Somersetisimon,

My issue was resolved with the RTM release (I got mine in August). If you are not running RTM, then that is my first recommendation.

If you are, then open up command prompt (run as admin) and type this:

sfc /scannow

~Lordbob

 

[Brink]

Hello Somersetisimon,

In addition to Bob's suggestion, a System Restore using a restore point dated before this error can sometimes fix this for you as well.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[somersetsimon]

I'm running the official release version, if that's what you mean by RTm.
I'm not sure about the system restore suggestion. This error has appeared on and off since the first couple of hours I installed and it comes and goes, so I not sure that it's a corrupted system file.

I'm running that scan now, so I'll see what that comes up with.

Thanks for your help

 

[somersetsimon]

Well, the scan finished without any errors or issues...

 

[Brink]

How about with the System Restore?

 

[somersetsimon]

How about with the System Restore?

I haven't tried this. Do you need to set something up in advance to store the system state at various times before you can restore?

Anyway, as I said earlier, the problem first occurred almost immediately after installing Windows 7, so there was never a point where it was OK!

It's weird that it's so random. E.g. Yesterday morning I booted up, logged in to my account, logged out, then my wife logged in to her account. No problem. She was logged in all day. I came home from work, did 'Switch User' and could only get the temporary profile. She logged out and I could still only get a temporary profile. Rebooted the machine and it was fine for the rest of the day. Switched off last night then rebooted and logged in this morning - everything is fine. I'll see what happens when I try and log in this evening when I get home.

I did find this old post (Developer's Blog: Fixing Temporary Profiles and User Profile Wizard 2.5) that discusses the problem and suggests that some process could be accessing the user profile. I'm not sure how I would track this down and I haven't installed any software that I wasn't using on Vista...

 

[Brink]

In that case, you may be better off doing a repair install. You will not lose anything.

 

[somersetsimon]

In that case, you may be better off doing a repair install. You will not lose anything.

Thanks for your help with this issue. I'll try your suggestion when I have some time. In the meantime, I've been looked through the Event Viewer and found these events from when I tried and failed to log in to my profile:

Windows detected your registry file is still in use by other applications or services. The file will be unloaded now. The applications or services that hold your registry file may not function properly afterwards.  

 DETAIL - 
 1 user registry handles leaked from \Registry\User\S-1-5-21-4026365291-2603741350-3062196972-1001:
Process 6092 (\Device\HarddiskVolume3\Windows\System32\winlogon.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-4026365291-2603741350-3062196972-1001

then this

Windows was unable to load the registry. This problem is often caused by insufficient memory or insufficient security rights. 

 DETAIL - The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.
 for C:\Users\Simon\ntuser.dat

then this

Windows cannot load the locally stored profile. Possible causes of this error include insufficient security rights or a corrupt local profile. 

 DETAIL - The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process.

then this

Windows has backed up this user profile. Windows will automatically try to use the backup profile the next time this user logs on.

before getting this

Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off.

I couldn't get any clue to what the other process was that using the profile data.

Can anyone make sense of this to figure out what is going on?

 

[MacGyvr]

The chances of fixing this, IMHO, are very slim. I suggest a complete wipe and reinstall of the OS. The time lost will be significantly less than the time spent trying to put bandaids on it.

 

[somersetsimon]

The chances of fixing this, IMHO, are very slim. I suggest a complete wipe and reinstall of the OS. The time lost will be significantly less than the time spent trying to put bandaids on it.

I'm beginning to think you are right! Are there any particular things to look out for when I reinstall? Last time my process was:

1) From Vista, save all the user data (including hidden files) for all 4 users to a USB disk
2) Do a clean install of Windows 7
3) Set up the same 4 user accounts
4) Copy the old user data back into the new user areas

Do you think I could have caused a problem with step (4). Is it really necessary to copy everything back in? The backup had things like ntuser.dat files. Apart from the documents, I probably only really need to copy back the user settings for Firefox and Thunderbird to preserve my old bookmarks and email settings. I wonder if I copied in some old user settings that screwed things up.

 

[Lordbob75]

The chances of fixing this, IMHO, are very slim. I suggest a complete wipe and reinstall of the OS. The time lost will be significantly less than the time spent trying to put bandaids on it.

I'm beginning to think you are right! Are there any particular things to look out for when I reinstall? Last time my process was:

1) From Vista, save all the user data (including hidden files) for all 4 users to a USB disk
2) Do a clean install of Windows 7
3) Set up the same 4 user accounts
4) Copy the old user data back into the new user areas

Do you think I could have caused a problem with step (4). Is it really necessary to copy everything back in? The backup had things like ntuser.dat files. Apart from the documents, I probably only really need to copy back the user settings for Firefox and Thunderbird to preserve my old bookmarks and email settings. I wonder if I copied in some old user settings that screwed things up.

I would recommend either using Easy Transfer, or back up all the user date using the built in back up and then restore it after the new install.

~Lordbob