Fix corrupt profile in windows 8?

26/08/2012

Categories: User Accounts

by Nick

This article will help you to fix a corrupt profile in Windows 8.

What is a User Profile in Windows 8?

User profile is nothing but a Record of user specific data and it define the working environment of a user. The “Record” includes system settings, network connections, display settings, application settings, customization and appearance settings etc. User profile can be compared with a room within a house. As there can be many rooms in a house and they can have different facilities and can be decorated differently. Like that there can be many user profiles in a Windows system having different access permissions and users can decorate their working environment differently from the other users.

User profiles are very important when multiple users are sharing a computer or a network. A network administrator or system admin can define what files, applications and directories a user can access by assigning different permissions for different users.

There are two types of user accounts in Windows 8. One is Local Account and another is Live Account. You need to have a Microsoft account (Hotmail or live e-mail id) to create a Live Account. Using live account you can sync various information and settings between two Windows 8 computers, having same Microsoft Account.

Steps to fix corrupt profile in windows 8 :

A. Creating a new user account in Windows 8

1. Press Windows Key + Q to open the App Search pane and type cmd.

2. Now, Right-click on cmd.exe from the result and select Run As Administrator.

Select Run As Admin

3. User Account Control or UAC dialog box will appear, click on Yes.

4. Type

net user username password /add

and hit Enter.

**[Replace 'username' and 'password' with your desired username and password]**

B. Copying old files to newly created User Profile :

First of all make sure that you have unchecked Hide protected operating system files and Hide extensions for known file types from Control Panel>Folder
View

Show System Files

1. Go to

C:\Users\(Your-Corrupted-Profile-Name)\.

C: can be different according to the drive, where you have installed Windows 8.

2. Copy all files except three files :
NtUser.dat
NtUser.ini
NtUser.log
If you cannot find the last file then there will be two log file with .LOG1 and .LOG2 extensions.

Leave these Files

3. Go to C:\Users\(New-User-Profile-name)\

4. Paste all those copied files here.

Now delete the corrupted profile. You have successfully transferred all information and settings of the corrupted profile to the newly created User Profile.

About Nick

I am a Blogger with Passion. I have interest in gadgets and technical stuffs. If you are facing any problem with your Windows, you are always welcomed to ask me.

jaime_sch

19/01/2013 at 11:02 PM

Thnks very much 4 your post, is clear and concise.
Works like charm!
I used it to create a new profile because had problem accessing Windows Store.

Nick

19/01/2013 at 11:26 PM

Hi, jaime thanks for leaving a comment. Glad to know that this article helped you. Keep visiting this site

bisyri

05/02/2013 at 3:54 PM

hello nick..i have a problem which my windows 8 cannot playy music..when plays the music it turns off.

05/02/2013 at 9:04 PM

hi bisyri, this is a common problem with some audio vendors. Are you facing this problem from the very beginning of the installation or the problem started suddenly?

If you are running Windows 8 Consumer Preview, try to use Windows 8 Pro instead of that.

fais

26/03/2013 at 2:21 PM

hello .. I hav a problem wid my window 8
actually I don’t install the administrator account in dis and because of it I can’t install any software in it . so can u tell me what can I do .
I really worried about that

26/03/2013 at 7:25 PM

Create an administrative account or make your current account an admin account.

28/03/2013 at 12:19 AM

when I try dis its does nt run and u knw what that there is no option of yes so what should I do 4 dis ?
I knw that there is no administrator account install that’s y its all happening
I am really bother about that plzzzz tell me the right solution so that I could approach the administrator account
that my story plzzzzzz give me the right way to solve that matter

Teegreeimmalo

08/02/2013 at 10:36 PM

This actually answered my issue, thank you!

28/03/2013 at 11:18 AM

Thanks for replying me back.. have a nice day…

PeterNil

08/03/2013 at 12:35 AM

In my case the faulty profile is a live and admin account. The result is that I get signed in with a temporary profile.

A couple of questions:
1. how do you get Windows 8 to sign in to the new profile instead of the corrupt one, which in my case seems to be the default. I have tried restart, signoff from faulty profile and change user. I have not yet deleted the faulty profile. It seems like the last resort.
2. what about the the file .ntuser.pol is that copied from the faulty user to the new user profile or not?

12/03/2013 at 1:48 AM

Hi peter, first create a fresh local account (admin), then follow the above mentioned article from your newly created local admin account. Only copy those files which are mentioned in this tutorial. No extra files need to be copied. After migrating the files of your faulty local account to the new local admin account, create a live account with your existing windows email id.

12/03/2013 at 1:55 AM

Thanks Nick!

Creating the local admin account was not the problem. However I was unable to get into that and any other profile – except the faulty one.

In addition I incurred networking and MFT problems that could not be recovered, so I did a Windows 8 reset. As recovery and refresh were not available.

12/03/2013 at 2:00 AM

Ya, reset is the last option. Have you solved your problem?

12/03/2013 at 3:33 AM

Yes – thanks. Windows 8 Reset worked well and pretty straight forward. It’s just time consuming with reinstalling apps, recovering data, and browser add-ons and bookmarks.

After the reset I did an offline chkdsk and it did not find any problems. Have contacted Toshiba if they have utilities to check if the hard disk is OK.

So still wondering what the root cause might be. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Even when I’m prepared for a recovery, refresh or reset of Windows 8 again.

12/03/2013 at 4:28 AM

I don’t think that there was any issue with your HDD. Generally mismatching of registry path leads those kinds of errors.

08/03/2013 at 12:38 AM

and when you get rid of the faulty live profile how do you associate the new user profile with the live account?

12/03/2013 at 1:50 AM

live profile can’t be faulty.. un link your live account.. perform the steps according to this tutorial and after setting up your new local user account again link your live account with that. All settings and apps will be synced.

SGendel

12/03/2013 at 1:07 AM

I created a new user profile due to a name change. Some registry entries for the user profile still referenced the old name, but some reflected the new name. We tried logging in as the local admin account, renaming the current user folder and logging back in with my new name. Things appear ok, however I now have lost all of the built-in Windows 8 apps and can not get the Windows Store app to open. I understand losing the apps downloaded from the Windows Store, but I don’t understand why I have lost the built-in apps (bing Travel, Weather, Mail, etc). Do you still suggest that I copy all of the files from the old profile folder? I was hesitant to do that because of the name change issue.

12/03/2013 at 1:42 AM

Hi, Using your live id you can easily get back all of your previously installed Windows 8 apps (including default apps) from the Store. Make sure you have not disabled Windows Store in your Windows 8 Machine. Following link will help you to enable/disable store in your windows 8.
http://mywindows8.org/disable-windows-store-in-windows-8/
So you can follow these steps :
1. First of all make sure you have not disabled Store in your Windows 8.
2. Migrate all necessary files from your previous local account to your new local account.( do according to this tutorial)
3. Now, using your live id log in to your live account and get back all previously installed apps from Windows Store.

Niki

12/03/2013 at 9:20 PM

I’m really glad I found your post. I have win8 and suddenly it logged me into a temporary profile although it used my admin profile name and password to log in.
I was looking for answers on microsoft’s website but all I found was complains from other people with the same issue.
I’m trying to follow your step by step instruction which is perfect for me because otherwise I have no idea what I am doing. But I ran into a problem. I’m at the step where I’m supposed copy the files to the new folder but it’s not there. The command promt wrote “The command completed successfully” at both steps though. What did I do wrong?

13/03/2013 at 12:08 AM

Hi Niki,
1. First of all make sure you have run that command on Elevated Command Prompt (Run as admin).
2. After creating new profile if you can’t see the C:\Users\(New-User-Profile-name) folder, do a restart and see whether now you can see it or not.
3. If it is still not there.. create a folder with the same name (case sensitive) in that location and copy above mentioned files.

13/03/2013 at 1:53 AM

I ran it as administrator.
I did the restart and before I logged in, there was a left arrow now beside the picture icon. I clicked on it and I can see the new profile as well with the old one. I logged in with the old one to copy all the files but when I go to C:\Users I can only see 3 folders… the old name, Public and Temp. :/

13/03/2013 at 2:24 AM

If possible.. copy those files to a USB flash drive from ur old account and try to log in to you new account. From your new account you will definitely able to see C:\Users\(new account) folder.. copy those files there from the USB flash drive.

I logged into the new one and I see all accounts within C:\Users . I changed the new one to admin, set to show all hidden files in Control Panel and now it’s copying everything from the old one here to the new one.
That should work too, right?

13/03/2013 at 2:31 AM

Yes.. definitely.. but only copy those files which are mentioned in this article.. don’t copy any extra .log or system files.

13/03/2013 at 3:04 AM

I didn’t copy the ones you said not to. I’m on my new account browsing my old pictures!
Hopefully it will stay this way now! I’m so glad I found your page!
Thank you so very much! You are the best!
I was going crazy with that temporary thing!

13/03/2013 at 2:29 PM

Hi Niki,
Thanx a lot. Nice to hear that this article served your purpose.
Cheers,
Nick

mermaidcg

23/03/2013 at 10:36 AM

Hey… i have the same problem with windows 8, after i refreshed my pc.. so i tryied to watch the steps u wrote here but UAC dialog box didn t appear when i clicked on “run as an administrator”

Debaleena

24/03/2013 at 8:19 AM

UAC dialog box may or may not appear. It does not matter. Follow the steps after that. May be you have disabled UAC notification, thats why it did not appear.

Glenn

10/04/2013 at 10:25 PM

I am having this problem but I am also using my live ID as my main account. How do you fix this issue with the live ID?
I tried creating a local account. Removing the live ID and then re-adding the live ID. However it stayed corrupted. I even edited the registry to remove whatever entries I could find for the live ID.
I’ve reinstalled three times now and really would like to avoid a fourth.
It seems it has something to do with the AMD graphics driver or uninstall program.
Bummer.

Thanks if you can help,
Glenn

Thomas

29/04/2013 at 12:53 AM

Hi Glenn.

I to am having the same problem with “amd_cleanup_util_1.2.1.0″. When I use this to remove all ATI drivers and the Windows 8 restarts my user account is missing and I have also lost my admin righst. Really sick of this