by
Shijaz Abdulla on 20.01.2008 at 08:33
If you’re facing problems logging in with your domain account to Windows Vista computer joined to a domain, and you’re wondering why you’re always getting logged on with a “temporary profile” on your Windows Vista computer, you need to read this post.
You’ve tried it all, deleting and recreating the profile, deleting the C:\users\%username% folder, etc. But the problem still remains.
This is because your domain user account is a member of either the Guests or Domain Guests local user group in the Windows Vista computer. Remove yourself from the group and feel the magic! 
If that doesn’t work, here is another tip:
Open up Registry Editor, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
You will find one entry for each profile. Check the following for the user account in question:
- Ensure the key name doesn’t end in “.bad“
- Ensure the RefCount value is 0
- Ensure the State value is 0
Thanks goes to my colleague Georgee for this tip!
by
Shijaz Abdulla on 23.06.2007 at 13:35
ModifyProfile, an ingenious freeware tool written by Marty List, lets you modify the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ registry hive of any user on your machine, without requiring the user to login.
By design, Windows has a different HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive for every user that has a profile on the Windows computer. This is stored in the C:\Documents & Settings\username\NTUser.dat file in each user’s profile. This hive is “loaded” whenever the user logs in and is displayed in REGEDIT as the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive. Depending on which user is logged in, the hive is different, because a different NTUser.dat file has been loaded.
Sometimes an administrator needs to change a registry value in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive of many or all users who log on to a particular system. I’ve seen that adminsitrators are usually confronted with this kind of a challenge on Terminal Servers, where multiple users estabish remote desktop/terminal sessions, and a change/restriction needs to be made in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive of all users.
Instead of having to login to each user’s session or write a login script to make the change, the administrator can pick a time when no user will be logged in (because the NTUser.dat file should not be “in use”) and use the ModifyProfile tool from the administrator’s command line.
For instance, I can implement a registry change stored in a .reg file for all users, by using a single command like:
ModifyProfile.exe /PROFILE:ALL /REG:”C:\TEMP\Changes.reg” /KEYNAME:TempHive
and ModifyProfile will open each user’s hive and do the job!
If you’re facing problems logging in with your domain account to Windows Vista computer joined to a domain, and you’re wondering why you’re always getting logged on with a “temporary profile” on your Windows Vista computer, you need to read this post.