User Data Lost on Restart

[Guest]

I purchased the upgrade version of Vista Ultimate the day it came out, and
after a long but painless installation and some driver issues, everything
seems to be running okay with a few exceptions. Primarily, it seems that
anytime my machine is restarted, all of my user data (ie local settings app
settings) is lost. This includes any bookmarks, installed programs (still
installed obviously but no longer on my start menu) settings, gadgets and
possibly most importantly anything found in Documents, Downloads etc.
A couple of points of interest: I log on as a domain user, but I do have
local adminstrative rights. I've done this for years and it was never an
isuue in XP w or w/o sp2. Secondly, I used Firefox profile manager and set a
new profile to save settings data in a folder NOT under my user (ie
C:\firefoxdata) and still on reboot I was welcomed with the Firefox first run
page.
So for right now I'm basically not restarting unless I absolutely have to,
but this can be annoying and difficult with a notebook that i bring
everywhere. So thank you for your time and I hope to hear back.

 

[Guest]

Wow! Sounds like your user account is set to use a mandatory profile from the
domain. You need to talk with the domain admin where you log in. Is the
machine set up so that you can log on to it when it is NOT connected to the
domain? (I would imagine that it would have to be, under the circumstances.)
If so, does your profile also get reset when you reboot or log off / log on
whe NOT connected?

 

[Guest]

Jimmuh,

I more or less am the domain admin, and nothing has changed on the domain
side since I upgraded to Vista. Yes, I am set up so that I can log on even
when not connected to the domain, and yes, it is reset when I reboot at home
or elsewhere. Hope this helps!

Bill

 

[Guest]

Heh-heh. When someone says "I more or less am the domain admin" then I know
the poor sap is in the same sort of position as I am. We ain't qualified
(Well, at least I ain't) but no one else wanted the job.

Well, it still sounds like a mandatory profile. It's possible to set one up
locally, too, but I can't imagine that it would happen by accident. I guess
you already checked for that. Anything showing up in the Event Viewer? Any
system problems bad enough to cause loss of your profile should be giving you
popup messages and littering logs with errors.

Was this a clean installation of Vista, or did you do an install-over on top
of Windows XP? I've been seeing some pretty damned strange messages about odd
account and profile issues that seem to result from install-overs.
Install-overs are against my religion. I've never liked them, and I like them
even less now that we've got another MAJOR overhaul in the way drivers work
in the OS. I understand that Vista tries to "grandfather" some types of
drivers when the upgrade installation is performed. The very idea of that,
coupled with the bizarre posts I've been seeing about confusion over accounts
and profiles, is enough to give me the willies.

I'll hang in here and hope that something comes to mind, but, honestly, I'm
not sure where to go if a) you see no errors anywhere, and b) you have no
mandatory profile set on the system.

 

[Guest]

Forgot to include this thought in my response above. You have said that this
happens when you reboot, but you haven't specifically said that it does it
when you log off then log on again. Does it?

Also, you said there were some driver issues with the reinstall. What were
they? Also, were your profiles redirected or stored in any place other than
the default under Windows XP or in the new installation? I'm wondering if
something weird might have happened in the "Documents and Settings" to
"Users" transition during the upgrade installation -- if, indeed, that was
the type of installation that was done.

 

[Guest]

Jimmuh,

Yes, I just checked and logging off does the same thing. The upgrade did
exactly what you said, moved everything from Doc&Settings to Users. It
essentially rebuilds the whole User profile, goes through the whole 10 minute
log on process (used to be when it said "Apply personal Settings" in XP). The
driver issues were just with my display drivers from nvidia, but that seems
to be cleared up and i cant see where it would have any effect on this
anyway. Any suggestions? I guess it wouldnt hurt to delete everything in
Users and and delete this user and re add it from the built in admin account.
ill give it a whirl.

 

[Guest]

Holy cow! Ten minutes! You don't mean each time you log on, to you? Are
offline files enabled on this system? (It shouldn't malfunction in this
manner, but still...)

You didn't say anything about the logs. The Event Viewer isn't showing you
anything?

And, no, nVidia (probably) needs to be kicked in the butt, but display
subsystem drivers shouldn't be responsible for this, unless it's causing
serious (blue screen style) errors on the system and foiling the OS as it
tries to save settings during log off. And you would DEFINITELY see that in
the logs.

And, no. Unfortunately, you are not talking with someone who's smart enough
to know where to go from here. At least not yet. I'm scratching my head on
this one.

Your experience, and the reported experiences of many others, continues to
confirm my bias against upgrade installations. Saving the data and nuking the
original installation is my way. The User State Migration Tool just makes it
too easy for me to consider doing otherwise. Yeah, I know it means you have
to reinstall the apps. More than worth it, in my opinion. The USMT at least
transfers all of the settings for IE and the Office apps, which are the most
involved configuration settings most people are going to have to set up on a
new machine / installation.

You are not alone. I am seeing some pretty danged strange reports out there.
They don't make any danged sense, but the claims are not being made by
idiots. They are believable, and they seem to involve an issue with upgrading
WinXP to Vista. Could be some third party apps or utilities clouding the
issue, or not. But there's certainly a problem for a small but significant
number of people.

Wish I could be of more help than just offering some commiseration.

 

[Guest]

When you restart, do you get an error message saying something about Windows
being unable to access your profile, and that it's creating a temporary one
to use?

 

[Guest]

I have this and can offer good news and bad news. The good news is I know the
HOW this is happening. It is creating a temporary profile when you log in and
tidying it up again when you log out. Look under the advanced stuff in user
accounts where the profile type /status is to verify this.

The bad news is I have no idea WHY this happening - yet! Still looking for
that.

Cheers,

Durwin

 

[Guest]

Well, I think I found out why it was happening in my case. It was a
combination of the Mozy backup software and Windows OneCare, apparently. It
seems the two would fight for control over the profile upon startup, and
weirdness would ensue. Updating to the latest version of Mozy looks to have
solved the problem for me.