Mysterious user profiles

[mike1977]

When I click User Accounts in control panel, and then configure advanced user profile properties, there are 3 Account Unknows at the top.

 

[Golden]

Hi Mike,

What are the names of these accounts? can you take a screencapture of them and post it here please?

Regards,
Golden

 

[mike1977]

ok.

 

[Golden]

OK. The bottom one is an account used by Nvidia to deliver updates, probably for your graphics card. From the reasearch I've done, it appears innocous enough, although its a bit sneaky on their behalf to do that. For more info see:

http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/184141-unknown-user-account.html

The Account Unknown I'm not quite sure about. Is there anybody else that logs onto your computer? Can you see these accounts under C:\Users?

Regards,
Golden

 

[mike1977]

I'm the only one that uses my computer, and I don't see them under C:\users

 

[Golden]

OK. I've asked for some more experienced people to have a look at this Mike.

Regards,
Golden

 

[kado897]

I have similar accounts in security. I think they came from virtual machines I created. Are you using VirtualBox or VMplayer?

 

[rraod]

Did you by any chance created users previously and deleted them? Or your windows 7 is an upgrade from an earlier windows where these owners exist.

Account Unknown is usually a leftover from previously created user accounts. You can safely delete these profiles one by one.

 

[mike1977]

Nope, my profile is the only one that has been on my computer.

 

[Barman58]

The users with the "unknown" title can normally be traced to previous users. The issue is often caused due to the way that NTFS stores data and the access permissions for the data.

Say you have some data (files/Photos/Etc.), and you give permissions for a user "Fred" to access it, the system does not see this user as "Fred" but as a long series of numbers known as the SID.

The SID is unique for each user, on each system, if you move the data to a second system, (even one with a user called "Fred"), the system will not recognise the SID of the first user and thus show it as unknown, (or it may actually show a SID reference S......).

This will happen on completely new systems when accessing data created on a previous or Just different system as the NTFS Security Identifier is saved as part of the file header

This can also occur if you have a multiboot system, that uses NTFS Security (NT/Win2000/XP/Vista/Win7), that access the same data

 

[kado897]

That would explain my entries where VMs accessed the same folders.

 

[Barman58]

That would explain my entries where VMs accessed the same folders.

A VM is essentially treated as a different machine so the SID's would show as unknown the only exceptions to this rule is system user accounts, such as Administrator, System, Etc. which all follow a close relationship and can show correctly, (and can be a potential security issue)

 

[kado897]

That would explain my entries where VMs accessed the same folders.

A VM is essentially treated as a different machine so the SID's would show as unknown the only exceptions to this rule is system user accounts, such as Administrator, System, Etc. which all follow a close relationship and can show correctly, (and can be a potential security issue)

Which is one reason I don't share with a VM that doesn't have a working firewall and AV.

 

[Barman58]

security is a lot better in win7 due to changes to administrator access to things like the root folders of drives (the old C$, D$ Etc. Shares).

Old systems like XP used to grant this sort of access as a default on Workgroups so anyone with an admin access to a network could cause a lot of damage

 

[kado897]

Yes. I remember that. I still prefer workgroups to homegroups though.

 

[Barman58]

To be totally honest, I don't feel really secure unless I'm on a Client/Server system with real security, (Machine ID Security as well as User based), but that's a throwback to my past

 

[kado897]

Well I've never really been involved with that so I just don't know.

 

[Teerex]

Nvidia more often than not fails to clean up the registry and you end up having former profiles and temporary profiles. For people comfortable with editing the registry, the solution is to go to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

after uninstalling the prevous driver version and look up any UpdatusUser leftovers and delete'em. Be careful not to delete your own account!