One user of four freezes and crashes

[Guest]

I am using XP Home Edition, SP2. There are 4 users. Three work fine. One has
been a problem since installation, as far as I can remember. At first, on
logging off her account, the computer would crash, and on rebooting, an error
message would sometimes come up about her ntuser.dat.log (non-valid link;
size invalid). Now it is difficult for her to log on (the computer freezes on
her background before the icons come up, and when we reboot (a) there are no
error messages, (b) it usually then works. Can anyone advise me, please ?

 

[Sharon F]

I am using XP Home Edition, SP2. There are 4 users. Three work fine. One has
been a problem since installation, as far as I can remember. At first, on
logging off her account, the computer would crash, and on rebooting, an error
message would sometimes come up about her ntuser.dat.log (non-valid link;
size invalid). Now it is difficult for her to log on (the computer freezes on
her background before the icons come up, and when we reboot (a) there are no
error messages, (b) it usually then works. Can anyone advise me, please ?

Create a new account for the user. Transfer data over to the new account.
Delete the old account. You do not want to transfer customizations (they
will have to set those up again manually) as they may be related to the
current account's corruption.

 

[Guest]

Thank you, Sharon, and Kelly before (where did your message go to ?) Sharon,
when you say, "transfer data over to the new account", how do I go about
doing that ? Sorry to be such a simpleton !
Martin

 

[Sharon F]

Thank you, Sharon, and Kelly before (where did your message go to ?) Sharon,
when you say, "transfer data over to the new account", how do I go about
doing that ? Sorry to be such a simpleton !
Martin

Locate their personal data files. Where and how many of these you will find
will depend on what is installed and on where they have elected to store
things. Copy over to appropriate folders belonging to the new account. Once
you are assured the copying was successful and the files are accessible to
the user, delete the old account.

Alternative method: Use the Files and Settings Transfer wizard (FAST) but
do a custom run to gather up files only (no settings). This tool is not all
inclusive but it will cover a large bulk of commonly used programs. You'll
see the list of software titles as you run this. You can then backtrack, if
necessary, to pick up data files from programs that were not covered by
FAST. More info on FAST can be found here (article by Gary Woodruff):
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/fast.htm