Vista Ultimate delete User Profile

Did your Vista OS deleted your user profile, after an update?

This has happened to many of us and it is still remain as a known issue. This can give you you a scare when you are unable to log in to your computer and you have urgent work to finish.

You can try to fix it by booting into the safe-mode and doing a System Restore.

To get into the Windows Vista Safe mode, as the computer is booting press and hold your "F8 Key" which should bring up the "Windows Advanced Options Menu". Use your arrow keys to move to "Safe Mode" and press your Enter key. Then to do the System Restore follow these steps:

Go to Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - System Restore.

Or press the WinKey on the keyboard, type Restore then press enter.

Tip: Right click on “System Restore” in System Tools, then click “Pin to Start Menu” easy access.

Press continue at the “Windows needs you permission to continue dialog box.

Select “Choose a different Restore Point”.

If “Choose a different restore point” was selected the “Choose a restore point” dialog box will appear. Choose a restore point an click on Next.

Now click Yes to continue.

The system will reboot and a dialog box will appear saying "system Restore completed successfully", if the restore was successful.

Well, that may fix the problem and you have your computer back to work on.

This is a known registry issue , and a registry fix would be a solution. You can try the following if the above did not work for you. Here, let me share the experience of Nigel, and how he fixed this problem, and if this ever happen to you, you can try too..

" I would get an on-screen error somewhat like

The user profile service service failed the login. User profile cannot be loaded.

In the application errorlog (eventvwr.msc) there were errors from the user profile saying

Windows cannot log you on because your profile cannot be loaded. Check that you are connected to the network, and that your network is functioning correctly.

DETAIL - Access is denied.

Arrgh. Another reboot no joy... Fortunately I had another id on the machine with admin privilige so I logged on.

After much googling I found out that the critical files are under

c:\users\MYUSER\ntuser* . Crucially the "ntuser.dat" file is actually a registry hive, so my running "REGEDIT", selecting HKEY_USERS in the nav, then "load hive" from the menu, I could browse my settings. So the file was not corrupt, it was there.

What now? Well I found additional registry entries with REGEDIT under

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

There was 1 line for each profile. Crucially if a profile is bad there are 3 things worth checking

a) Ensure the key name doesn't end in ".bad"

b) Ensure the RefCount value is 0

c) Ensure the State value is 0

Having done the above, the profile then worked fine, and I'm now back up and running with all settings intact.

Phew. I certainly learnt something in the process, and hope this helps you too!"