Account unkown profiles

[kevindd992002]

I went into User Profiles windows and noticed several Account Unknown profiles like this:



Now, what are those profiles? I also have another system with a fresh install of Win7 x64 and updated all drivers and Windows Updates and I also noticed around 2 Account Unknown profiles. When I try to delete them, it doesn't want me to. Do I need to do something about these?

 

[josearedux]

Does your primary login account also appear in the above dialog?
If you open CP- user accounts - manage another.. - Do you see the account you normally use as well as Guest (disabled) ?
If both answers are yes, I would boot into safe mode and run your virus scanner and a malware program such as malwarebytes just to rule out malware

 

[kevindd992002]

Yes it does, no problem with that as I only have one login account.

Yes, when I open CP - user accounts - manage another, I see my main account and an OFF Guest account.

I already run virus scanner in safe mode and came out clean. I read in the Internet that some Windows updates are creating these suspicious accounts.

 

[josearedux]

I guess that is possible but I am totally up to date with Win 7 home (except for IE 10) and only see my primary account in the dialog you posted above. Do you see any related errors or warnings in event viewer?

 

[kevindd992002]

I guess that is possible but I am totally up to date with Win 7 home (except for IE 10) and only see my primary account in the dialog you posted above. Do you see any related errors or warnings in event viewer?

Hmmm, weird. I don't have any related errors/warnings in event viewer. Well, as I've said I also see these account unknown profiles even with my fresh install. What could be my next step in solving these?

 

[gregrocker]

Delete them. If Updates needs one for staging it will create another.

You'll need to use the Admin account which is the one which should have been set up during install.

In addition if this is pre-installed Win7 I would consider getting the superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 without the factory bloatware and duplicate utilities.

At the least I'd Clean Up Factory Bloatware making sure to run a Clean Boot so freeloaders don't start up and run with Win7.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/220165-troubleshooting-steps-windows-7-a.html

 

[josearedux]

After some reseach I would agree ^^^^ , but you may have to login with the hidden administrator account to do it. I read somewhere that Nvidia updater creates it own user account (& profile) so it may be associated with it.
Just curious do you use windows update to update drivers (I do not) ?

 

[gregrocker]

Good work, Josea. It could very well be the Nvidia crapware since this is preinstalled Win7 which always has more than a dozen freeloaders starting up on Win7's back.

So until one can get the vastly superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 it's important to Clean Up Factory Bloatware - especially establishing a Clean Boot with only the lean recommended AV starting with Windows.

Nvidia needs nothing to start with Win7, only the driver in Device Manager. The crap it bundles with the driver can be easily turned off in msconfig.

 

[kevindd992002]

Delete them. If Updates needs one for staging it will create another.

You'll need to use the Admin account which is the one which should have been set up during install.

In addition if this is pre-installed Win7 I would consider getting the superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 without the factory bloatware and duplicate utilities.

At the least I'd Clean Up Factory Bloatware making sure to run a Clean Boot so freeloaders don't start up and run with Win7.

After some reseach I would agree ^^^^ , but you may have to login with the hidden administrator account to do it. I read somewhere that Nvidia updater creates it own user account (& profile) so it may be associated with it.
Just curious do you use windows update to update drivers (I do not) ?

Good work, Josea. It could very well be the Nvidia crapware since this is preinstalled Win7 which always has more than a dozen freeloaders starting up on Win7's back.

So until one can get the vastly superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 it's important to Clean Up Factory Bloatware - especially establishing a Clean Boot with only the lean recommended AV starting with Windows.

Nvidia needs nothing to start with Win7, only the driver in Device Manager. The crap it bundles with the driver can be easily turned off in msconfig.

This is definitely NOT a pre-installed Windows 7. I am a savvy kind of guy when reinstalling Win7 and I did this from scratch, from an OEM install disc. I am also very careful in installing only the necessary software in my system and you can consider mine a bloatware-free system.

Yes, I know about NVIDIA creating a user account for its updater but it is called [computer-name]\UpdatusUser and not the Account Unknown profiles we are talking about.

Also, no I get all my updated drivers from the manufacturers website directly. I never update my drivers through Windows update.

With all these info mentioned, what can be the cause of these profiles? When I try delete them, an error prompt of the message "Profile not deleted completely. Error - The directory is not empty." appears but they are removed from the list anyway.

 

[gregrocker]

Win7 is driver-complete. We stopped having to worry about drivers after XP. If you're shoveling drivers into WIn7 then it's asking for trouble and using XPired methods.

In Win8 the user doesn't even interact with drivers - they are all done in the background using WIn7 technology.

The profiles in question appear to be Roaming Profiles similar to those used with remote desktop. When you get the error "Profile not deleted completely. Error - The directory is not empty" it most often means an open-handle with a process still running in the profile, often a print spooler.

There is more about this and a hotfix here: Roaming profile copies not deleted.

 

[kevindd992002]

Win7 is driver-complete. We stopped having to worry about drivers after XP. If you're shoveling drivers into WIn7 then it's asking for trouble and using XPired methods.

In Win8 the user doesn't even interact with drivers - they are all done in the background using WIn7 technology.

The profiles in question appear to be Roaming Profiles similar to those used with remote desktop. When you get the error "Profile not deleted completely. Error - The directory is not empty" it most often means an open-handle with a process still running in the profile, often a print spooler.

There is more about this and a hotfix here: Roaming profile copies not deleted.

But the thing is that they are all tagged as Local profiles as seen in my first post, so how's that?

 

[gregrocker]

Will they delete completely, and not recreate?

 

[kevindd992002]

Will they delete completely, and not recreate?

Yes they will and they don't recreate. I'm just wondering about that error?

Upon further research, ot seems that the NVIDIA driver installer is really the cause of the creation of these account unknown profiles. It seems thay every time you install an NVIDIA driver, it overwrites the UpdatusUser profile and create an additional account unknown profile. But where is the folder for the account unknown profile located? I can't see it anywhere in c:\users, it is not even hidden.

 

[kevindd992002]

Bump!