You have been logged on with a temporary profile - Windows 7

You have been logged on with a temporary profile.

“You cannot access your files and files created in this profile will be deleted when you log off. To fix this, log off and try logging on later. Please see the event log for details or contact your system administrator.”

I am an I.T Professional since 2006, I encounter this error in Windows XP, then in Vista and now in Windows 7 as well, “I think this is a Windows Family Problem”. Time changed, Microsoft Windows changes a lot in themes and off-course in other technical, performance and security aspects as well but this error is not fixed. From time to Time, We (I.T Professionals) works to fix this error, these are the common practices that we can do for this error.

·         Restart Your Computer, hopefully, you will be able to get your OLD profile back in normal and same working condition.

·         Corrupted Profile, Logon with Administrator Account, Change your OLD profile name then again login with effected USER, just re-configure it and hopefully, this issue will be resolved.

·         TEMP Profile, Windows create a TEMP user profile when you use your own username and password to access your computer / desktop and there is a message on your screen that ““You cannot access your files and files created in this profile will be deleted when you log off. To fix this, log off and try logging on later. Please see the event log for details or contact your system administrator.”

·         Profile Name with Incremental 00, In domain environments , I found this type of greatness from Microsoft Windows that, it create New Profile but make an 0, domain name etc. increment with user profile name.

There is a knowledge base on Microsoft Website, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947242 , http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947215 and you can check it as well, but this does not solve problem many times, as article is based on deleted profiles.

Solution 1:

1.       Restart Your Computer.

Solution 2:

1.       Log on With Administrator Account (other than effected user), backup profile, rename it and again login with original user. Works with corrupted user profile.

Solution 3:

1.       Check, your Active Directory User is not a member or Guest group on Domain Controller.

Solution 4:

1.       Restart your System, Run in Safe Mode.

2.       Log on to your System by an Administrative User account (other than effected user)

3.       Backup Up all in effected user’s profile (if available J because in some cases you even loss your data, read how to recover lost profile in Windows), user profile folder can be accessed from    %SystemDrive%\Users\UserName (Windows Vista / 7) for Windows XP, you need to type bit extra. %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\UserName.

4.       Delete all your effected Profiles (if one or more with incremental names, but take backup first).

5.       Click Start, type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER, in Windows Vista / 7, it may be prompt you for Administrator access or password.

6.       Locate the following registry Subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

7.       Under the ProfileList subkey, click on each individual subkey and find your effected username, in left pane in front of ProfileImagePath, for me it was as. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ S-1-5-21-2697157797-3922012616-804475456-2266\

and in front of ProfileImagePath, there was my username with path C:\Users\rizwan.ahmad.  

Microsoft Says: Under the ProfileList subkey, expand and delete the subkey that is SID.bak. but I recommend above procedure ;).

8.       Exit Registry Editor.

9.       Restart Your Computer Normally, and hope this issue is gone.

I write this solution based on my troubleshooting in domain environments and in Workgroup as well. Some sounds comes in ears that this solution is for Domain environment or for roaming environment but I never experience that. I hope this will work for everyone but if you experience something other and your get some troubleshooting, share in comments and I will update it in solutions as well.