User Profiles restored from backup do not appear on welcome screen

[Racehunter]

Hi,

Due to needing to clean C drive and re-install Windows, I backed up just the user profiles to an external hard drive using the Windows 7 utility. I have restored the profiles using the same utility but the profile names and logo's do not appear on the welcome screen. I can see the files and folders in Explorer but I thought that the profiles would be automatically re-created. Have I missed something?

Incidentally, when I reloaded windows I created an Admin profile for setting everything up and did not use my actual profile name.

Thanks

Steve

 

[pjhutch]

You will also need to create the user account that matches the profile. Load Control Panel, User Accounts to create a new account and make sure that the profile has full rights over the restored profile.

 

[Racehunter]

Thanks, I will give that a go. Incidentally, because i partitioned my hard drive after cleaning, I think the main partition in which Windows sits, may be named differently from before the clean up. Where should I restore to, original location or new location?

Steve

 

[pjhutch]

I don't think the name of the partition makes any difference. You can leave it as it is.

 

[Racehunter]

So, check the box 'restore to original location'?

 

[pjhutch]

Yes, restore it to the original location.

 

[Racehunter]

Thanks

 

[Racehunter]

Sorry to bring this posting back up again, however I have now added a SSD as the primary drive, with Windows 7, Office 2010 and Mcafee loaded up and updated. My original HDD is now going to be the home for the user profiles etc, but currently is totally clean and therefore empty.

Having read the tutorials for moving user profiles to a new location, I am still unsure about a couple of points. Currently I have still the single Admin profile that I created when loading Win 7, but have not set up the 4 profiles, that I will need. Should I create these profiles, now, to match those on the back up, then move them to D drive prior to restoring the data to D, or restore the data first, then create and move the user profiles afterwards.

I also assume that I will not be selecting the 'restore to original location' option when I restore the data to D drive.

Thanks in advance

Steve

 

[Kari]

I would first move the Users folder, then create new profiles.

Kari

 

[Racehunter]

Thanks Kari, I will try it now.

 

[Racehunter]

Obviously not very good at this This is what I did:
Tried to move the whole Uses folder/profile from the default location, on C drive (my new SSD), but could not see how to do that, so restored the data (existing user profiles with libraries) to D drive, which ended up with a location address of D:\C\Users, then to test it out, created my profile as usual on C drive with exactly the same name and password as previously used. The location was C:\Users\Steve. I logged of the new 'steve' profile and logged back in as Admin and through regedit, changed the path of my new profile to D:\C\Users\Steve.

Unfortunately when I log on the my profile again and try to view my files and folders, nothing is there from the back-up and I get a message that my profile is TEMP and all items created while logged on will be deleted as soon as I log off.

Where have I gone wrong??

 

[Racehunter]

Ok, I decided to start again and cleaned the HDD (D drive) and did a clean install of Windows 7 onto the SSD (C drive), only this time I followed the tutorial by Kari on how to relocate Users etc during Win 7 install.

Fantastic tutorial, Kari, thanks. I now have the Users on D drive, although at present only my new Admin profile as well as Public etc are active. Now to try to get the backed up files and folders of the original users to work.

What is the best way? Do I create the new user profiles first, then simply restore from the backup location to an empty space on D, open individual profiles and copy across each folder to the correct new user profile, before deleting the restored folder?

Thanks in advance

 

[Racehunter]

You will also need to create the user account that matches the profile. Load Control Panel, User Accounts to create a new account and make sure that the profile has full rights over the restored profile.

How do I do this?

 

[pjhutch]

To create the actual accounts, go to Control Panel, User Accounts and Family Safety, Add or remove user accounts then click on Create a new account. Once an account is create it will appear on the Login screen. When you login to these accounts, it will create a new profile. The default location is C:\Users.

To change the default User Profile location e.g. D:\Users, see this article:
How to Change User Profile Default Location in Windows 7 | Windows7hacker

 

[Racehunter]

Thanks, however the bit I am not sure about is granting the new profile full rights over the restored one.

Steve