So you go to the c:\users\whateverusername you’re working on and rename the user profile, log in and it loads a temporary profile in Windows 7! What is happening? In Windows XP, 2000, etc you could just do a rename on the user folder and log in, Windows would then log them in, create the profile and you could copy files over but in Windows 7 it seems you can’t do this anymore. I found the answer here on a Windows 7 forum.
What you do is this (thanks to sat450):
- Restart your PC to release the locks on your profiles. <- I didn’t have to do this, just logout
- Log on with another administrative account.
- Delete C:\Users\%username% <- I would recommend doing a rename, username_old or something
- Delete C:\Users\TEMP <- That didn’t exist for me once I logged them out
- Delete the registry key matching your SID from “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList”. Check the value “ProfileImagePath” to make sure you pick your own profile. <- When you click on the SID’s you’ll see the path thus you’ll be able to identify the user “c:\users\username” Restart once again and then you’re done! <- I didn’t have to do this, just log in
This was certainly useful information and worthy of posting! I had to do this because of an Outlook error I couldn’t overcome, Outlook failed to start…I’ll post that exact error when I think about it. You reconfigure outlook and import your old mail and contacts – done!
THIS WORK AND IS THE SIMPLEST EVER