[eaglet]

When i turned my computer on yesterday i got a message during the Widows start up saying Preparing Your Desktop and now I can only boot to the basic windows desktop and cannot get my desktop back. Also when i try to use any programs it treats the as thought they are newly installed and have not been used before. I have rebooted several times but get the same basic desktop

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Before doing any of the following, make a backup of your registry. I suggest you install ERUNT to do this.

The following was written for XP but still applies to Vista and Windows 7:

Your files are still there. Sounds like your user profile has lost it's connection with where it's data is stored. If you are comfortable with using regedit, try this by booting to Safe Mode by pressing F8 during boot. Login as Administrator, no password.

The key is a registry hack that redirects Windows back to the ProfileImagePath of the original profile.

Click on Start then Run. type regedit and press Enter or click OK.

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

Once there, you will see the SID's listed for all of the profiles on the machine. Within the Key for each SID there is an entry called "ProfileImagePath" that will look like

%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\UserName...

Scroll through the SID's until you find the one with the screwy name, like

%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\youruserid.2

This is just an example, could be something else weird.

Just edit the Key to remove the ".2", and it will point the user back to their old profile...

Got this from TechRepublic.com

If that doesn't help, give this a try: Fix a corrupted user profile

Note: Before you can copy anything, you must first logon with the new profile by logging off the current one and logging on with the new one or using Fast User Switching to logon to the new one without logging off of the old one.

[Ztruker]

Before doing any of the following, make a backup of your registry. I suggest you install ERUNT to do this.

The following was written for XP but still applies to Vista and Windows 7:

Your files are still there. Sounds like your user profile has lost it's connection with where it's data is stored. If you are comfortable with using regedit, try this by booting to Safe Mode by pressing F8 during boot. Login as Administrator, no password.

The key is a registry hack that redirects Windows back to the ProfileImagePath of the original profile.

Click on Start then Run. type regedit and press Enter or click OK.

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

Once there, you will see the SID's listed for all of the profiles on the machine. Within the Key for each SID there is an entry called "ProfileImagePath" that will look like

%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\UserName...

Scroll through the SID's until you find the one with the screwy name, like

%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\youruserid.2

This is just an example, could be something else weird.

Just edit the Key to remove the ".2", and it will point the user back to their old profile...

Got this from TechRepublic.com

If that doesn't help, give this a try: Fix a corrupted user profile

Note: Before you can copy anything, you must first logon with the new profile by logging off the current one and logging on with the new one or using Fast User Switching to logon to the new one without logging off of the old one.

[eaglet]

thanks for this. I actually did a system restore and that seems to have solved the problem so unless you think there may be an ongoing problem I won't trouble you any more . Thank you anyway

[Ztruker]

If SR did the trick then you should be fine. Thanks for letting us know.