Win2K not recognizing existing user 1

[Weezie62]

I am the Help Desk support at a mid-sized non-profit. In the past week, I have encountered the same problem on 2 user PCs (one desktop, one laptop) that I've never seen before. In both cases, the systems are Windows 2000, and we are running on a Novell network (may be irrelevant).

What happens is that each time the user logs in, the system creates a new profile for that user. The user profile is created as the username. The system creates a new profile, username.machinename. Therefore, when the user logs in, the profile "username" is not loaded, but rather a new profile, "username.machinename" is loaded. So the user no longer has her shortcuts, favorites, etc.. In both cases, I did the following in this order:
-In Safe mode, I deleted all cookies, temp files, etc.. (on the current system I've been working on, it would not delete the temp files on one particular profile, though not this user's profile)
-In Safe Mode, I ran 2 different virus tools (Stinger and eTrust InoculateIT--both came out clean).
-In Safe Mode, I ran SpyBot--it found some Spyware, which I had it fix. I then rebooted into Safe Mode, ran SpyBot again and it came out clean.
-In Safe Mode, I defragged.
-I rebooted into normal mode and did all the updates from microsoft.com.
-I installed and ran Microsoft Defender--it found some stuff and I had it clean it.
*After all this, Windows 2000 STILL creates a new profile instead of loading into the existing profile.
For the first machine on which I encountered this, we simply re-imaged the machine. Now that this has happened a second time, I'd like to know how to resolve this for the future. Any ideas?????? THANK YOU so much!

 

[chipk]

I'm trying to recall, but I believe I've seen this when the user's profile AND the default profile are both corrupt. You might try copying the Default User's profile from another (preferably similar) Windows 2000 machine, delete the unwanted profiles, remove the NTUSER.DAT files from the remaaining profile and then reboot & log back in.

 

[wolluf]

It happens when the user profile is corrupt (nothing to do with default profile). Can also happen if you have roaming profile and it can't access the server copy (network problems or permissions). Or if there has been a change which makes windows identify the exiting profile as not belonging to the owning user. It is in fact quite common on NT/2k/xp machines on a 2k/2k3 server network (I've no recent experince of Novell - nearly 10 years since last worked with it).

You can of course copy back the shortcuts, favourites, documents etc from the old to new profile.

 

[Weezie62]

Thanks! Actually, I did copy her files (ie, My Documents, Favorites, etc.) to another location, removed her account from the Control Panel, deleted files associated with her account (including the files the system created) under Documents and Settings, then recreated her account. I put her files back that I had saved elsewhere, and she's been fine ever since. Thank you so much for the guidance!

 

[maxthedork]

This has happened to us on occasion, and here are the steps we use to fix it:

1. Reboot the PC and log on as the local Administrator account
2. Reset permissions on the user's original profile
a. Browse to C:\Documents and Settings\ and right-click the user's ORIGINAL folder, and select Properties
b. Click on the Security tab.
c. Make sure the user has full permissions to the folder.
d. Click on the Advanced button
e. Put a check in the box labeled: “Reset permissions on all child objects and enable propagation of inheritable permissions” and click OK.
f. When you receive the warning message, click Yes.
g. You'll see the permissions being reset on the file structure. Depending on the size of the profile folder, this may take some time to complete.
h. Once the permissions are reset, click OK to close the folder permissions.
4. Rename the NEW profile folder to "nouser"
a. Highlight the new profile folder (user.machinename).
b. Right-click the folder and click Rename.
c. Right-click the name of the folder when it’s editable, and click Copy. This copies the name to the clipboard.
d. Type in the word “nouser” and hit Enter.
5. Rename old profile to the new profile name.
a. Highlight the old profile folder (user)
b. Right-click the folder and click Rename.
c. Right-click the name of the folder when it’s editable, and click Paste. This pastes the new name over the old name.
d. Hit Enter.
6. Log off and log on as the user. Verify that profile has been successfully restored.

It's a bit basic and I apologize for the low-level instructions but I wrote it for our support techs who really need their hands held.

 

[bcastner]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/811151

 

[Weezie62]

Thank you to maxthedork and bcastner! I had this happen yet again within the past week. Here's what I've found from each of your replies:

bcastner: I had this happen on a user machine exactly one week ago and I did this. It seemed to work. However, today the same thing started happening again (system created a new user account) on the same user machine, same user logon.

So I did what was suggested by:
maxthedork: Your instructions worked beautifully! However, for anyone who may look to these instructions in the future, I must admit that I tried to deviate from your instructions (!) and that did not work! I tried leaving the name of the original folder as its original name (the username). But when I logged in as the user, it created a new folder again. When I renamed the original folder as instructed, I didn’t have any trouble.