Windows – “The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded”

windows

I hope you can help me. I have tried to log on but I get the following error code

"The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded”

The problem I have is that I only have 1 profile which appears to be the one that is corrupted. So I cannot open it in safe mode…anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks

Best Answer

The following assumes that the machine is an AD domain member:

Connect to the machine remotely with Registry Editor. Open regedit on a remote computer, using alternate credentials if necessary. Such as Domain Admin credentials. In Regedit, click File -> Connect Network Registry... and connect to the computer with the busted profile.

Since you say that there is only 1 profile on this machine, then it has to be Administrator (SID-500.)

So now that you are connected to the remote machine's registry, navigate to 

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

And delete every subkey that looks like S-1-5-21-xxxxxx-500.

Next, open up a Command Prompt, Cmd.exe, again using alternate credentials such as a Domain Admin, that has privileges on the remote machine. Run the following command:

C:\> rd /s \\computer01\C$\Users\Administrator

Delete the directory. Also delete any other similar directory like

\\computer01\C$\Users\Administrator.Domain if it exists. If this is Windows XP or 2003, the profiles will be under Documents and Settings, instead of Users.

Problem solved.

Now, if this is not a domain-joined computer, then your only options are to do something like

  • Hit F12 during boot and use the recovery options, such as Last Known Good Configuration, or Repair, etc.
  • Use the Windows installation media (DVD, USB,) if you don't have a recovery partition, and use that to repair, restore from backup, etc. At the very least you can open a command prompt and copy off some files if you need to reimage the thing.

Good luck.

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