Account re-created on boot

[Joe S.]

I searched for this problem in advance in this newsgroup & came up empty. I
apologize if it has been covered before & I missed it. Win2000 SP4 fully
patched.

User's account was re-created on boot. The account users folder located at
C:\Documents and Settings\jsmith was still there & a new folder was created
called: C:\Documents and Settings\jsmith.jsmith

The main problem with this is that he lost all his personal settings.
Several programs use the local settings folder to store settings & it takes
some time to restore these programs to a usable level.

I attempted to rename the new folder (jsmith.jsmith) & rebooting & removing
the folder & rebooting. Each time a new folder is created. Another support
techie jumped in while I was not there & removed the users account &
re-instated it, fixing nothing & not knowing any other solution, we had to
restore the users personal settings manually.

The day before the problem the user's MS media player was upgraded to the
latest version, other than that, no recent changes to the system.

Possible causes?
Possible solutions?

regards
Joe S.

 

[Anthony Yates]

It means you have or had two jsmith accounts. Possibly one local user and
one domain user? Or a deleted one and a new one?
To tidy this up you need to:
Copy off the profiles in Documents and Settings so you can restore what you
need.
Use My Computer, Right-Click, Properties, Users Profiles to delete the
profiles (you need to be logged in as someone other than JSmith, with admin
rights).
Only when you have deleted the User Profiles, delete the folders in
Documents and Settings if they are left behind. You can't manipulate these
profile folders directly. The ACLs mean they are locked to the SID of the
account.
Start again.
Anthony

 

[Joe S.]

No, there was only one account for jsmith. The account ended up being
deleted & yes, we started over, but no, only one jsmith to delete.

The original jsmith folder was huge btw, around 2.5 gig if that means
anything.