HP keeps using a temporary profile

Discussion in 'Technology' started by Samora, Oct 26, 2012.

  1. Samora

    Samora Moderator
    Staff Member

    Inter Milan
    United States
    Mar 27, 2008
    San Diego!
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I start up, log in and see the dreaded message
    "Preparing your desktop"
    then a temporary profile is used and all my stuff is gone minus some programs
    I turn it off, wait 30 seconds or so, boot up again and login and its fine or I do it one more time if need be
    I already went to hp and customer service told me to go back to factory settings, I did and it worked for about a month or two now its back in full swing
    any help?
     
  2. Boundzy

    Boundzy BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 1, 2003
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    For Windows 7, apparently some have had success with the instructions below. The related thread is here: http://preview.tinyurl.com/8mwkhvj

    1. Open Command Prompt (cmd.exe)
    2. Open Task Manager and kill process "Explorer.exe"
    3. At command prompt, type this below

    Set userprofile=c:\Users\<your profile name>

    4. Close command prompt
    5. On task manager window, click File > New Task (Run...) then type this below

    Explorer.exe

    6. Restart.
     
  3. Samora

    Samora Moderator
    Staff Member

    Inter Milan
    United States
    Mar 27, 2008
    San Diego!
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I can do 1. , Im a bit confused with 2
    where is this task manager window? and how do I kill explorer
     
  4. Kryptonite

    Kryptonite Fancy Title Here

    Apr 10, 1999
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I would assume he means pressing the control-alt-delete buttons at the same time. From there, you should see an option to "Start Task Manager."
     
  5. Samora

    Samora Moderator
    Staff Member

    Inter Milan
    United States
    Mar 27, 2008
    San Diego!
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    its not working, in fact it got worse
    this is what I did
    opened command prompt
    pressed ctrl alt delete to open task manager
    ended the process Explorer(didnt see the word kill anywhere)
    typed
    Set user profile=c:\Users\<Zamo>
    I didnt press enter and closed command prompt
    then I tried looking for a tab called file but I thought it might be applications
    there i saw the new task button at the bottom, typed Explorer.exe and then restarted
    It didn't work, got the same message, had to shutdown about 6 times and now I have to be in safe mode with networking in order to get some info
     
  6. Boundzy

    Boundzy BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 1, 2003
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Well crap. Ok...

    First, use windows explorer (Window's Key + E) and look in C:\Users
    Hopefully, 'Zamo' will be listed (without the quotes)

    Try the procedure again without the < or > signs in the set userprofile command ...
    If you put <Zamo> then it was looking for a user named <Zamo> not Zamo. Putting the username between <> is a convention similar to putting commands between quotes (e.g., enter "exit" in the command line and hit 'Enter').
    1. Go to Start --> Run (this will open a box)
    2. Type in: cmd
    3. Hit OK (this will open a command line window - leave it alone for now)
    4. Hit ctrl+alt+del (this will bring up a screen that includes an option for Task Manager)
    5. Click 'Task Manager'
    6. Click the 'Processes' tab
    7. Click 'explorer.exe' (this should highlight it)
    8. Click 'End Process' (there will some changes to the screen, but you should be able to use your mouse)
    9. Go to the command line window
    10. Type in: Set userprofile=c:\Users\Zamo
    11. Hit enter
    12. Close the command line by either typing exit and hitting enter or clicking the 'x'
    13. Go back to the Task Manager window - above the tabs should be some menu options, including 'File'
    14. Click 'File' then 'New Task (run...)' (this will open a box)
    15. Type: explorer.exe
    16. Click OK
    17. Restart
    You should have your desktop back and it should be your default desktop.
     
  7. Samora

    Samora Moderator
    Staff Member

    Inter Milan
    United States
    Mar 27, 2008
    San Diego!
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    word for word and still no cigar, it kinda improved in that it now just takes one restart or a shutdown to go back...
     
  8. Boundzy

    Boundzy BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 1, 2003
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Two other options would be to save your files and re-install Windows or to look into System Restore and restore your system to a point before all this happened. When HP had you restore factory settings, was that a re-installation of Windows?

    Have you done a full virus/malware scan to rule out something nefarious?

    Well, that pretty much saps my ideas. Sorry it didn't work. Time for a new computer! o_O
     
  9. Kryptonite

    Kryptonite Fancy Title Here

    Apr 10, 1999
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Good question. I'm not sure if it's still true, but I know a lot of computer companies (Dell, HP, and others) would install their own crap onto the computers with Windows. In addition, when you'd buy an HP, it would come with a modified version of Windows. It would be something like Windows 7 for HP, instead of a "clean" copy of Windows 7.

    (Because of this, my last several desktops have all been "build your own" situations.)

    That might be the trick. "Blow" it all out, start from total scratch AND with a clean copy of Windows.
     
  10. Samora

    Samora Moderator
    Staff Member

    Inter Milan
    United States
    Mar 27, 2008
    San Diego!
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I did that when it happened the first time, also did a virus/malware scan

    can't buy a new one after all this one is only 1 1/2 years old:thumbsdown:

    after digging around a bit for answers I found out that there's a chance that I'm booting up and logging in too fast for the computer to have time to get the profile(or something like that Im not very technical when talking about computers) so it sends out the temporary one
    I now take my time after booting it up before logging in(a minute) instead of logging in as soon as the logging window shows(12 seconds) and so far I'm 5 for 5, if it gets really bad again then I'll probably do another fresh clean start
     
  11. Boundzy

    Boundzy BigSoccer Supporter

    Jul 1, 2003
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Ahhh, I see. Premature entry. Gets you in trouble every time.

    Hope this solves the problem.
     
    Samora repped this.
  12. Kryptonite

    Kryptonite Fancy Title Here

    Apr 10, 1999
    Columbus
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    :D
     
    Samora repped this.
  13. SpencerNY

    SpencerNY Member+

    Dec 1, 2001
    Up in the skyway
    This is most likely the culprit. I work IT and the issue you're describing is a common among our users. We ask that the users just remain patient and don't log-in for just a few seconds. You can kinda hear and see that the computer is actually still loading stuff right when the 'press control alt-delete to login' message displays.
     

Share This Page