Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Unable to load User Profile

0 helpful
10 replies

by the_roamer

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
I have a WinNT 4 domain using NetBeui protocol. Recently, I have encountered a new problem with workstations on my domain. The workstations store copies of Roaming profiles on the workstation HD. This has caused memory problems. After deleting locally stored user profiles, some users are unable to log on to the workstation...getting the error "Unable to load user profile. Contact Network Admin". When I log onto the workstation, there are several files under the Profiles directory of WinNTwith "user.OOO" (where "user" would be the user name of the failed logon attempt). I am not sure where to go from here. I need to keep workstations from storing profiles and restore logon rights for all users...

10 replies

by curlergirl

Assuming you are using NT workstations, I don't believe there is any way to prevent them from storing profiles locally. The workstation HAS to have a local profile in order for the user to log on. The use of roaming profiles is optional and the purpose is to allow a user to have a "universal" profile that is downloaded to any workstation where that user logs on. The behavior of roaming profiles is that the roaming profile is copied to the local workstation when the user logs on, thus providing the same user profile no matter what workstation the user is on. The "unable to load user profile" indicates either a network communication problem (i.e., the network is too slow for the profile to be downloaded before a timeout occurs), or possibly a user rights problem on the workstation. One thing you might want to do if space is an issue on your workstations is move the Temporary Internet files and any other temporary files you have in the user profile to a different location, so each user doesn't have his or her own temporary internet files stored individually on the workstation. This would also prevent them from being included in the roaming profile, which would in turn speed up the time it takes your users to log on and refreshtheir local profiles. Hope this helps!

by the_roamer

The users on my network do not have Internet connection. Therefore, temporary Internet files should be minimal. Unless, it would also cache picture files opened by IE. In addition, this problem seems to be almost exclusively on "Dell" workstations. We are running NT Workstation...so...that was a correct assumption...

Any other ideas?

by rorycarlin

Add this new key (type REG_DWORD) to the registry on each of your workstations:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\DeleteRoamingCache

Put '1' in the value. This will stop NT caching copies of roaming profiles. You could deploy this is a regedit file through login scripts using the undocumented regedit /s command to run silently.

You may have to delete your existing cached profiles manually.

Hope this helps.

by the_roamer

Okay...assuming I completed the steps correctly...and to reiterate...I added a new DWORD value to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\ of "DeleteRoamingCache" (as this was not there by default). I edited thisvalue with a value of "1".

When I rebooted and tried logging on as a user who previously could not, I still recieved the "Unable to load profile" error and was unable to log on to the workstation...

If I was incorrect, please let me know where I went wrong. Thank you for your advice, though...I can only assume this narrows down possibilities of the problem.

by the_roamer

Okay...assuming I completed this correctly, and to reiterate the steps I took...I added a DWORD value to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\ of "DeleteRoamingCache" (as it was not there by default) and edited the value of this to "1". I then rebooted the machine and tried to logon as a user who has previously been unable. I still got the "Unable to load User Profile" error and was unable to log on.

If I made any mistakes with the directions you gave, please let me know...thank you for your help...any other ideas?

by chengo

Try to do a backup for the current profile for the user, and then recreate a new one,
. If works, restore all the backed up data to there.

Good luck!

by shanghai sam

I have tried this step repeatedly...I have not gleaned any results from this... Thank you, though.

by the_roamer

Obviously this question is harder than I thought...so...I upped the Ante to see if someone's gonna be my hero...

This discussion is closed to new replies.