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New "user" in Documents and Settings

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6 replies

by ace in the hole

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One of secretary's computers has suddenly created a new "user" in the Documents and Settings folder. Usually there are 4 - Admin , All Users, Default User, and Jane Doe (the secretary). Yesterday morning, a 5th new "user" had appeared as Jane Doe.JANE
This new user apparently seems to be the default now when Windows (2000 Pro) starts. It acts as if no one has ever logged into windows (welcome to word, excel - outlook express was empty). I was able to import most of the information I needed to Outlook, Excel, and some other programs, but it still isnt quite right. Has anyone seen this before? If so, how would I get Windows to to read the Jane Doe user and not the Jane Doe.JANE?

6 replies

by sue t

of a domain? Does the user log on to the computer or do they log onto the domain. If they logged on to the computer instead of the domain and when this new account appeared it could be that on that day they logged onto the domain instead of the local computer. If this is the case then you should be able to log onto the local computer again and be back in business. If this isn't the case please post again and maybe someone will have an idea.

by keystones

This is windows NT's way of fixing a corrupt user. Jane Doe was the old user, Jane Doe.Jane is the new user and after the . is the local computers net bios name.
If you are running the windows 2000 computer on fat32 it is very likely that a simple power failure or someone "Hot Crashing" the computer, can cause user profile corruption.
If the computer filesystem is NTFS then user profile corruption could indicate hardware failure being imminent.

by kenone

Make a backup copy of the old profile first.
It has been awhile since I've done this but I can get you started.
Right click my computer - Properties - Advanced - User Profiles -Settings. Select the old profile and click Copy, things get fuzzy here but as I recall you then select a profile to copy to and click okay and wait.
I do not recall if this works the same in W2K and XP. I no longer have any W2K machines lying about.

by keystones

Take good care of what you copy from the old user profile to the new user profile in case the problem lies withing the folder itself

by ace in the hole

Thanks for your help. I went ahead and rerouted everything to the newly created profile from the corrupted one and everything is running smooth *knock on wood*.
Thanks again for your help.

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