What are Windows user accounts ?

Every time you login to your computer it looks for your Windows account or profile, this is a directory which stores all your preferences such as screen settings, email settings and of course files.

For everyone who logs into a computer they get a windows account automatically created for them, this explains why a computer may take longer to login for a new user the first time he or she logs in, as the account has to be created.

Troubleshooting – Recreating Windows user Accounts & Profiles
As the account stores so much information its not surprising that over time it can get very big which means it gets slow and maybe even unreliable.

As a major step towards troubleshooting it’s a good idea to setup a new profile for any users having problems, this is easy to do and to revert back if this does not resolve the issue.

To do this you will need be able to login to an alternative Windows account which has administrator rights; if you need to setup another account this can be done from user accounts within Control Panel.

Before renaming your profile make sure you make a note of email accounts and settings, printers

Windows User Accounts Recreating

Firstly login under another account and then rename the account adding the -old extension, then reboot and as above once we log back in using the test-account a new profile is then created.

Login using the other Windows account and then go to My Computer – C drive – and look for Documents and Settings then look for the Windows profile or account having the problems, once you have found it right click on it to rename it, leave the name as it is, but add the word old to the end of it.

Now if you reboot the computer log back in under the account that was having the problems and it will recreate the account, you can check this by going to My Computer – C drive – Documents and Settings – you will then see the new profile/account.

Check to make sure its working ok, once happy then you just need to copy documents, favorites and desktop from the old profile to the new.

Reverting Back to the old Windows Profile

If you find creating a new profile has not fixed the issue it is very easy to revert back to the original Windows account or profile.

To do this, log back in using an alternative account, find the new account that was created and add temp to its name, now find the account that we added old to and remove this, once this is done reboot the computer and it will then boot up using the original account profile.

If you find that you cannot rename a Windows profile there may be 3 reasons for this.

You are trying to rename the profile of the account you are currently logged in as.
The account you are using does not have administrator rights which are required to be able to change profile names.

Files within the account profile are in use, sometimes logging out is not enough, and the computer may need to be rebooted completely.

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