Windows User Accounts - Problems & Resolutions
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
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.
If you need to delete any Windows user
accounts find out how to do this correctly here..
computer adviser
windows user accounts article |
