Logged On As Wrong Windows User

[John Pollard]

I foolishly allowed a Dell application to "clean up" my laptop
pc. I now have many problems, but perhaps they have one cause.

Now, starting the computer takes around 20 minutes. And each
time, it has forgotten customizations I made before the previous
shutdown.

While Windows is booting up, there is a strange message in a
small dialog box about creating a new profile for Internet
Explorer (6), and one or two other messages whose details I have
forgotten but which imply similarly that Windows doesn't
recognize me. I've never seen any of these message before (pc
is 5 years old).

Sometimes I am asked to choose which account to logon: John
Pollard, or Guest ... but though I always choose John Pollard, I
do not ever get logged on as John Pollard - at least not
completely. Other times I am not offerred any logon choice, but
I wind up in the same place.

When I look in Control Panel > User Accounts, I see just two
accounts: John Pollard and Guest. That is the way it's always
been. In the Documents and Settings folder, there are 4
subfolders: Administrator, All Users, John Pollard, and TEMP.
I'm supposing TEMP is the folder for the Guest account, though
it seems to be named "Default User" on my desktop pc.

If I click "Start", I see the choice to "Log Off John Pollard",
making it appear that John Pollard is logged on; but Windows is
not using the desktop folder for John Pollard; it's using the
desktop folder for TEMP (as well as other TEMP folders like
"Favorites").

Is there some simple way to tell Windows to log "me" on and use
my profile? And to make that the default?

 

[Malke]

I foolishly allowed a Dell application to "clean up" my laptop
pc. I now have many problems, but perhaps they have one cause.

Now, starting the computer takes around 20 minutes. And each
time, it has forgotten customizations I made before the previous
shutdown.

While Windows is booting up, there is a strange message in a
small dialog box about creating a new profile for Internet
Explorer (6), and one or two other messages whose details I have
forgotten but which imply similarly that Windows doesn't
recognize me. I've never seen any of these message before (pc
is 5 years old).

Sometimes I am asked to choose which account to logon: John
Pollard, or Guest ... but though I always choose John Pollard, I
do not ever get logged on as John Pollard - at least not
completely. Other times I am not offerred any logon choice, but
I wind up in the same place.

When I look in Control Panel > User Accounts, I see just two
accounts: John Pollard and Guest. That is the way it's always
been. In the Documents and Settings folder, there are 4
subfolders: Administrator, All Users, John Pollard, and TEMP.
I'm supposing TEMP is the folder for the Guest account, though
it seems to be named "Default User" on my desktop pc.

If I click "Start", I see the choice to "Log Off John Pollard",
making it appear that John Pollard is logged on; but Windows is
not using the desktop folder for John Pollard; it's using the
desktop folder for TEMP (as well as other TEMP folders like
"Favorites").

Is there some simple way to tell Windows to log "me" on and use
my profile? And to make that the default?

It would seem that whatever you ran damaged your operating system and
corrupted your user profile. Guest account in the Control Panel should be
turned off and Default User is the template from which new user accounts
are made. You are getting logged into a temporary account because the
original John Pollard account is damaged.

Things to try:

1. Do a System Restore to before you ran whatever it was you ran. If that
fixes things, great.

2. If SR doesn't do it, then create a new user account for yourself - call
it "John" or whatever but not "John Pollard". Log into the new account and
copy all your data from the old account to it. After you know you have all
your stuff and things are working the way you want in the new account, go
to the User Accounts applet and delete the old "John Pollard" account since
it is corrupted.

3. If Windows still doesn't work correctly, you can try to fix it with the
System File Checker.

Start>Run>sfc /scannow [OK]

4. If that still doesn't fix the damage, try a Repair Install. Back up your
data first.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm - Repair Install
How-To

And don't run those "PC Optimizers" or "Doctors" or whatever it was you did
again.

Malke

 

[John Pollard]

It would seem that whatever you ran damaged your operating
system and
corrupted your user profile. Guest account in the Control
Panel
should be turned off and Default User is the template from
which new
user accounts are made. You are getting logged into a
temporary
account because the original John Pollard account is damaged.

Things to try:

Thanks for the response; it's taken me a bit of time to get into
it.

1. Do a System Restore to before you ran whatever it was you
ran. If
that fixes things, great.

I wish. System Restore fails. In fact it failed when I tried
it a month before this problem cropped up too.

2. If SR doesn't do it, then create a new user account for
yourself -
call it "John" or whatever but not "John Pollard". Log into
the new
account and copy all your data from the old account to it.
After you
know you have all your stuff and things are working the way
you want
in the new account, go to the User Accounts applet and delete
the old
"John Pollard" account since it is corrupted.

This seems to be the best answer for me.

I created the new Windows user and copied what I thought I
needed from the old user Documents and Settings folders. I also
created a "backup" (on my hard drive) of those same old
Documents and Settings folders.

Things seem to be working pretty well now with the new user, so
I'm at the point where I want to delete the old user.

I just wanted to double check to see if there might be anything
I've missed, that I'd lose the chance to pickup after I delete
the old user?

And don't run those "PC Optimizers" or "Doctors"
or whatever it was you did again.

That's advice I'll have no trouble following.

Thank you very much.

 

[Malke]

This seems to be the best answer for me.

I created the new Windows user and copied what I thought I
needed from the old user Documents and Settings folders. I also
created a "backup" (on my hard drive) of those same old
Documents and Settings folders.

Things seem to be working pretty well now with the new user, so
I'm at the point where I want to delete the old user.

I just wanted to double check to see if there might be anything
I've missed, that I'd lose the chance to pickup after I delete
the old user?


That's advice I'll have no trouble following.

Things you would want from the old user account:

1. Depending on how you access email, your address book and any stored
emails you want to keep. If you use a web-based email (GMail, Yahoo, your
own ISP's webmail) then you don't need to worry about this since the data
is stored on their server, not your local computer.

2. Favorites for IE and Bookmarks for Firefox. If you use an ISP-branded
browser like AT&T/Yahoo or AOL, you don't need to worry about this since
the data is stored on their server, not your local computer.

3. Everything from My Documents, naturally.

That's about it.

Malke

 

[John Pollard]

Things you would want from the old user account:

1. Depending on how you access email, your address book and
any stored
emails you want to keep. If you use a web-based email (GMail,
Yahoo,
your own ISP's webmail) then you don't need to worry about
this since
the data is stored on their server, not your local computer.

I use Outlook. And it doesn't seem to recognize the address
book or emails from my old user.

I see a folder named Address Book (in the Microsoft folder) in
both old and new user, and the file in each is the same name and
size. I also see an Outlook folder (in the Microsoft folder)
for both old and new user. The new user only had 2 files here
and the old user had 4. One missing file was "Outlook.NK2" of
"Type": "Office Data File". I copied that into the new user
Outlook folder. I ignored the Video CD movie file.

I have an Outlook.pst file in the new user folder "Local
Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook" which is where
Control Panel says it should be. The new user .pst file is the
same size as the old user file.

But when I start Outlook, there are no contacts, and no emails.

[The very first time I started Outlook as this new user, Outlook
began a setup process; but I wasn't sure what I would need to
know to complete that process, so I cancelled it. Now when I
start Outlook, I don't get the setup process.]

2. Favorites for IE and Bookmarks for Firefox. If you use an
ISP-branded browser like AT&T/Yahoo or AOL, you don't need to
worry
about this since the data is stored on their server, not your
local
computer.

I use IE6 and my favorites seem to be ok.

3. Everything from My Documents, naturally.

Got these ok too.

 

[Malke]

I use Outlook. And it doesn't seem to recognize the address
book or emails from my old user.

I see a folder named Address Book (in the Microsoft folder) in
both old and new user, and the file in each is the same name and
size. I also see an Outlook folder (in the Microsoft folder)
for both old and new user. The new user only had 2 files here
and the old user had 4. One missing file was "Outlook.NK2" of
"Type": "Office Data File". I copied that into the new user
Outlook folder. I ignored the Video CD movie file.

I have an Outlook.pst file in the new user folder "Local
Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook" which is where
Control Panel says it should be. The new user .pst file is the
same size as the old user file.

But when I start Outlook, there are no contacts, and no emails.

[The very first time I started Outlook as this new user, Outlook
began a setup process; but I wasn't sure what I would need to
know to complete that process, so I cancelled it. Now when I
start Outlook, I don't get the setup process.]

You need your Outlook .pst file from the old user. This page has the .pst
file locations. You don't have an Exchange server so don't worry about that
part.

http://www.slipstick.com/config/backup.asp

You need to set up your new user's Outlook with your email user account,
password, and email servers. Refer to your ISP's website for this
information if you don't have it written down. Then you'll import the .pst
file from the old account. The main Slipstick.com has more information
about doing this. Generally your addresses will be in Outlook's Contacts.

Malke

 

[John Pollard]

You need your Outlook .pst file from the old user. This page
has the
.pst file locations. You don't have an Exchange server so
don't worry
about that part.

http://www.slipstick.com/config/backup.asp

You need to set up your new user's Outlook with your email
user
account, password, and email servers. Refer to your ISP's
website for
this information if you don't have it written down. Then
you'll
import the .pst file from the old account. The main
Slipstick.com has
more information about doing this. Generally your addresses
will be
in Outlook's Contacts.

Getting the correct .pst file into the right folder did the
trick.

Things are just about back to normal now. Thanks much.

 

[Malke]

Getting the correct .pst file into the right folder did the
trick.

Things are just about back to normal now. Thanks much.

Glad you got things sorted. Thanks for taking the time to let me know.

Malke