Strange behaviour regarding profile/users

[Douglas]

I have XP Pro at home, only two users are listed under user accounts/
Douglas and Guest.

I have been using Douglas for a while now, no problem at all. Then a week
ago I boot up my PC as normal but it is acting like it is the first time I
have ever logged on. It wants to do the tour, my mail is gone, my desktop
and icons are gone, it is like a fresh setup. I looked under C:\documents
and settings and I have a user Douglas and a user Douglas.workhome. I
copied all my data over to the new profile, douglas.workhome and all was
well.

Then yesterday the same thing happened, now I have user
douglas.workhome.0000 under the C:\documents and settings. I haven't done
anything to the computer and this just randomly keeps doing this. Any
suggestions?

Thank you in advance,
Douglas

 

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

That is very strange for a workgroup computer. Normally, when a profile
is corrupted, XP will say so and tell you it is using a temporary
profile that isn't saved. Have you been switching back and forth between
workgroup and domain?