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  • #2178932

    W2Kcreated new user account on same user

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    by borgesen ·

    On a Windows 2000 stand alone machine, when the logged on, suddenly all his regular desktop shortcuts and the content of the startmenu folder had changed – e-mail accounts gone etc.

    Looking under “Documents and Settings”, i discovered, that his username apeard twice as:

    [Username]
    and
    [Username.pc-name]

    I found all his regular shortcuts etc. under the first folder [Username], but for some reason, the account had been “recreated”, and when he now types in his regular logon, the PC chooses [Username.pc-name].

    How do I change this back?
    ..Will it for instants work, just to Copy the content of [Username] into [Username.pc-name]?

    (And for kicks: How does this thing happen to begin with?)

    Thanks in advance for any responce.

    Borgesen, Denmark

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    • #3196801
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      Reply To: W2Kcreated new user account on same user

      by hal 9000 ·

      In reply to W2Kcreated new user account on same user

      I’ve only seen something like this once previously where the owners son and his fiends got in after hours and played games on the company network and they trashed a user account so they created a new one naturally with none of the data stored in it.

      If you start in Safe Mode you should be given the option of either user account and then you could log on with the old user account and delete the one that is currently opening by default.

      Failing that you can copy all of the data in the way of documents straight across to the new account but you’ll have to Import any Address Book and E-Mail into those programs and you’ll most likely have to recreate the desktop shortcuts.

      Lets know how you get on

      Col

      • #3196761

        Reply To: W2Kcreated new user account on same user

        by borgesen ·

        In reply to Reply To: W2Kcreated new user account on same user

        Inspired by your post, I booted into safemode. I was somewhat in doubt what you mean by “If you start in Safe Mode you should be given the option of either user account”.

        However, I eventually (in safe mode) logged on as Administrator, and did the following:
        * Deleted the Folder in D&S with the name [username.pc-name]
        * Open the registry editor
        * Made a search for “username.pc-name”
        It primarily found two “sets” with this content, the first one being:
        HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Profilelist\[Some alfanumeric code]\

        …where I found the key-value “ProfileImagePath”. This I changed.

        The second set was a bunch of keys in:

        HKU\.Default\Software\Microsoft\MSE\9.0\

        …with names like:

        DefaultOpenFileLocation
        DefaultNewProjectLocation
        …etc.

        All of these keys I changed from [username.pc-name] into just [username]

        I then rebooted and logged on with the [Username].

        I haven’t yet had a change to test evety aspect of this solution, but on first account it actually seems to have done the trick as far as:

        * The Desktop Shortcuts are back – and in the same location on screen
        * The Start menu Shortcuts are back
        * The all old e-mails (OE) are there and OE is able to fetch mail.
        * The programs automaticly started to system tray are the same as before.

        So far, the user is a “happy-camper”, and unless he comes back tomorrow with further complaints, I consider the problem thus solved.

        Thanks a bunch for your inspiration!

        Borgesen, Denmark

    • #3196783

      Reply To: W2Kcreated new user account on same user

      by azul ·

      In reply to W2Kcreated new user account on same user

      I have seen this happen when users on a W2k machine try to login to a Novell server.

      I have also seen slightly similar issues when a user created an account on the local machine and then loged in to an active directory domain.

      You can copy the contents from one profile to the other but you may continue to have other issues with the My Documents folder.

      My advice is copy all of the pertinent data to a folder at the root of C, From the admin account delete both profiles and create a new one.

      • #3196760

        Reply To: W2Kcreated new user account on same user

        by borgesen ·

        In reply to Reply To: W2Kcreated new user account on same user

        Well, the machine is a standalone and not a member for a domain in any way.

        The there is however more than one user, as this fellow has kids who also uses the computer – however with only “user rights” and there own logins. There logins are however as far as I can see unaffected.

    • #3196759

      Reply To: W2Kcreated new user account on same user

      by borgesen ·

      In reply to W2Kcreated new user account on same user

      This question was closed by the author

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