User Profile Exists but new one is created

[djhawthorn]

I have a problem where a user profile already exists on the NT4 Wrkstn machine, but when the user logs on, they get a brand new profile created for them. I look in User Profiles (in System Properties) and only the new user profile is listed, so I cant copy the old one across - I have to do it manually.

Is there any reason / workaround / fix for this problem? I've had it happen before, and the user kept losing their settings everytime the PC was rebooted..

 

[wolluf]

Are we talking machine in a domain here? And is there a domain user id which is same as local user id?

 

[djhawthorn]

It's in a domain yes, a domain user account (there is no local user account).

Same user, same SID, same everything - she just shut down her PC the night before, came in the next day, booted her PC, logged in and got a new profile.

 

[NickFerrar]

Has someone messed about with permissions on the C: drive?

 

[djhawthorn]

Nope.

 

[wolluf]

I think I've seen this happen (with roaming profiles) after there was a problem saving the profile when user logged off (ie, the save failed). When logged on next time, system created new profile (like it was treating existing one as a local profile) on local machine. Don't know why this happened or if there is a way to stop it.

 

[steveNY]

A few questions...

Is this a roaming profile?

Are you using virus protection software?

And, which network client are you using?

 

[rjbj]

The problem is that you have lost the secure channel from the domain to that PC. If this user has a roaming profile try having them login to the network from another PC. If they can and their profile works then the machine secure channel needs to be reset. If they cannot then the roaming profile is not executing properly. To test to see if the user account and Machine accout are still valid on your server use the NLTest.exe command as illustrated in KB article Q158148.

 

[djhawthorn]

We don't actually use roaming profiles, nor was one created for this user. It has always been a local profile, and a new local profile was created.

Ala, she had her profile in C:\winnt\profiles\username\, and then one morning she came in, booted up her PC, logged in, and got a new profile created in C:\winnt\profiles\username.001\. The old profile still existed, but nothing I did would make her account reuse that old (her real) profile.

 

[wolluf]

Is this new profile creation progressive (ie, does she get a new one - .002, .003 etc - every time she logs on)? What about permissions? What local level of access has this user to machine? When logon creates new profile, does her user actually have full control permissions to the old ignored profile?

 

[djhawthorn]

> Is this new profile creation progressive?

Nope, only happened once so far, although I've seen it before where it happens again.

> What about permissions?

They haven't changed, if that's what your asking.

> What local level of access has this user to machine?

Power User.

> When logon creates new profile, does her user actually have full control permissions to the old ignored profile?

Yep.

 

[wolluf]

I've definitely seen this before - but its 3 or 4 years ago, and can't remember cause/remedy. One thing that has occurred to me about possible cause. If user logged on when network was down/disconnected NT will sometimes allow this even though its a domain login, using locally stored user settings. Having done this, it may have 'marked' the profile as local (ie, belonging to local user) as no domain present. On next logon with network up, system will create new profile as it always differentiates between local and domain user accouts with the same id - creating separate profiles for them.