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User Profiles Missing

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by rnix 1 view

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In one week I had two users who logged on in the morning as they usually do with the same user name as always. However, when they logged on their user profiles were blank. They had none of the customized Icons that are normally on their screen, their network paths were missing along with some MS-Excel spreadsheets. Also, Excel and Word came up as if it were just installed and not configured yet. I had just installed the latest Virus protection software from Norton just days before and so I do not think it is a Virus problem unless it is a very new Virus. Any Ideas?

THanks
Randy Nix

5 replies

by yorkster

goto c:\winnt\system32\profiles and check all profiles to see if users old profile exists if so you can copy it to the users new profile and get back thier desktop and any files stored on the desktop.

by rnix

No old profiles exists. The users profile folder was still in place when we found the problem, but it was just empty. The only other profiles are the Admins., the Default and all users. Those too had no entries.
Any other suggestions?

by qultptry

Are you storing profiles on server under profiles$ ?, and is the path in the user logon under profiles correct? Are they using NT WS or 95/98 - path is different for each. If you save profiles to server, there is always a local which can copy overserver profile if question comes up. Also be careful, users can delete others profiles locally, but not on the server. If you have profiles stored on server it should copy down after logon and overwrite local. If the server copy was blank because at some point the path started to work, it probably copied over the local and "blanked" it. Try this. Set user profile path to \\servername\sharename=profiles$\username
On 95/98 it should have a drive letter.
NT - is top field under profiles.
The first time user logs on you should see the profile grow and add folders. Have user change desktop/ folders etc., logoff, then check size and dates of files and you'll see the changes the next time. When they log off it when the server is updated with the new profile. GOOD LUCK! Tell your users if the questions ever comes up that the local profile is newer than the server do you want to use - say NO! that means it somehow didn't connect to server in time and the local wants to load. Test this a couple of times to make sure the clients are really connecting to server for authentication.

by rnix

The profiles are saved on the local machines and not a server. Our Network grew one machine at a time and we have not gotten away from local profiles. Also, we have only one user per machine, so there were no other profiles on the computer except for the Administrator.

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