Community archive

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Possible corrupt profiles

0 helpful
7 replies

by hdrysdale

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
On two occasions we have had the same user seemingly corrupt their Windows NT 4.0 user profile. The first instance all icons and favorites were completly wiped out. The second instance while logging in they recieved a message asking to create a new user with an elapsed count down time. Do you have any insight on what this user may or may not be doing to cause the loss of a profile? Are profiles commonly unstable in NT or could this issue just be due to insufficient memory?

7 replies

by clearsmashdrop

Ive seen the same error where a request is made to create a new profile and the countdown. I remember solving it after finding help in the Microsoft Technet Knowledge Base. But I dont remember what exactly I did. It revolved around copying some file from another NT machine. ( user.dat ??? )

I know this is'nt an answer but hopefully it will get you started.

After fixing the profile I backed up the machine and later on reinstalled NT.

by gary mcp

We constatntly have that problem here. We're using Roaming profiles stored on the network, as you may be. Basically when the user logs in, the profile is copied down to the local machine. When the user logs off, the profile is copied back up to the network drive, incorporating any changes they may have made.

However, if the user stores any files in their profile directory, or has too many temporary internet files, the copy in one direction or another fails. Basically, if the profile is over2mb, it's unreliable. If the copy fails, a new "default" profile is created, without any of the user's preferences (often losing user files in the process).

Hope this helps,
Gary

by rcom

The countdown feature was started with service pack 4 in the policy editor you can set a dialog to allow the user to create a new, use the local or the policy on the server. If they select the local one then that's probably what's changed the one stored on the server. To stop the dialog from appearing the time setting for how long it will be displayed has to be set to 0. Now how only this user has the feature enabled is a another question.

Here is an article that explains.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q196284

Good Luck!

This discussion is closed to new replies.