Profiles Missing or Not Visible

  • Thread starter Thread starter Thomas M.
  • Start date Start date
T

Thomas M.

XP SP2

I work in second-tier support and we have a first-tier Network Administrator
who is reporting something which I have never seen. He is attempting to
setup a new machine for a new employee, and he claims that when he logs on
to the computer with the employee's user ID, that no profile gets created.
As far as I know, that's not possible.

We haven't actually gotten our hands on the machine yet, so maybe this post
is a little premature as it could end up being something simple. But I
thought I would pose the question anyway just so that once we *do* get a
look at the machine we will have some ideas of what to look for.

Is there a way that the profile could be getting created and yet not be
visible? Is there in fact a way for the person to logon WITHOUT a profile
getting created?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

--Tom
 
Is there a way that the profile could be getting created and yet not be
visible? Is there in fact a way for the person to logon WITHOUT a profile
getting created?
Click to expand...

I have some more information on this. We got our hands on the machine in
question, and the profile IS getting created, but it's getting created as
TEMP. The computer takes forever to login and actually create the profile.
We did find some events in the logs which imply that roaming profiles have
been setup. We are thinking that the computer is trying to locate the
roaming profile and when it fails to locate that profile it creates the TEMP
profile.

--Tom
 
Thomas M. said:
I have some more information on this. We got our hands on the machine in
question, and the profile IS getting created, but it's getting created as
TEMP. The computer takes forever to login and actually create the
profile. We did find some events in the logs which imply that roaming
profiles have been setup. We are thinking that the computer is trying to
locate the roaming profile and when it fails to locate that profile it
creates the TEMP profile.
Click to expand...

We have positively identified the problem. The Network Administrator we
have been working with was NOT at fault here. We went into the user account
in AD and found that a former second-tier admin appears to have attempted to
setup Terminal Services via a Citrix server by configuring settings in the
AD account. Unfortunately, the Terminal Services profile path got entered
on the Profile tab instead of the Terminal Services Profile tab. The
*Profile* tab is for roaming profiles. So by putting the profile path on
the wrong tab our former admin gave the user a roaming profile instead of
Terminal Services. To compound the problem the path contained an invalid
server name. Each time the user authenticated to AD the system was trying
to locate the roaming profile on a server that does not exist, hence
explaining the prolonged login time and the creation of the TEMP profile on
the local machine.

--Tom
 
Thomas M. wrote:

We have positively identified the problem. The Network Administrator we
have been working with was NOT at fault here. We went into the user
account in AD and found that a former second-tier admin appears to have
attempted to setup Terminal Services via a Citrix server by configuring
settings in the
AD account. Unfortunately, the Terminal Services profile path got entered
on the Profile tab instead of the Terminal Services Profile tab. The
*Profile* tab is for roaming profiles. So by putting the profile path on
the wrong tab our former admin gave the user a roaming profile instead of
Terminal Services. To compound the problem the path contained an invalid
server name. Each time the user authenticated to AD the system was trying
to locate the roaming profile on a server that does not exist, hence
explaining the prolonged login time and the creation of the TEMP profile
on the local machine.
Click to expand...

Those damn computers. Don't they know what we *really* wanted to do?! Thanks
for posting the solution. I never had the faintest idea of how to help you
but was quite interested to see the end result. And it was human error, as
it so often is. ;-)

Malke
 
Those damn computers. Don't they know what we *really* wanted to do?!
Thanks
for posting the solution. I never had the faintest idea of how to help you
but was quite interested to see the end result. And it was human error, as
it so often is. ;-)

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
Don't Panic!
Click to expand...

Yep, computers will do what you tell them to do, and that's also the
problem.

We cracked this by logging in using the ID of one of the affected users and
noticing that there was no profile created for that user ID. So I directed
the tech who was sitting at the keyboard to right-click the Start button and
select the Explore option, knowing that this will always open Windows
Explorer to the Start Menu folder for the currently logged in profile.
Windows Explorer opened under a profile called TEMP (all caps). A little
Googling turned up that the TEMP profile can be related to roaming profiles,
which is what lead us to look at the AD account of the user, and the pieces
fell into place from that point.

I actually like troubleshooting these kinds of problems because I can learn
a lot in the process, and the problem is bizarre enough that I'll probably
never forget the fix.

--Tom
 
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