User Profile Failed The Logon

[goodgoalie]

For the second time in eight days I have had the above message when putting my password into my laptop, and have had to do a System Restore, by pressing F11 when booting up. I've had to do this three or four times before, but it has usually lasted for a year or more.

There are several sites online that suggest ways of solving what seems to be a fairly common problem, but they are way too tricky for my rudimentary IT skills, and I have stuff on my laptop that I dare not lose. I'm using Windows Vista.

Please, does anybody know an easy, foolproof way of solving this problem?

[goodgoalie]

Forgot to say that these last two times I've done the System Restore, it has offered me dates to go back to no further than Feb this year - previously you could select a year or more ago.

[goodgoalie]

Just bumping this. Chris, are you there......?

[Buenchico]

Chris was here when you first posted, GG ;-)

Unfortunately I know only too well that it's a damned fiddly process to fix your problem in Windows 7 & 8. (I've never encountered an easy way to do it. You have to follow the online instructions extremely carefully).

However it's meant to be a lot easier with Windows 10 if you've got access to another Windows 10 computer (or you've simply got a friend who uses Windows 10 and who wouldn't mind copying a file from his computer and emailing it to you). I've not actually tried it myself though!

So which version of Windows are you using?

[goodgoalie]

Thanks for your reply, Chris. I'm using Vista, but didn't realise it could perhaps be fixed by importing a file from another computer.
I have to say that if it's tricky for you, then it's likely to be waaaay too difficult for me.
Any ideas why I'm now not being offered dates to restore it to going back to last year? Don't mind doing it , say, once a year - but not once a week !

[Buenchico]

The only fix I'm happy to recommend to someone who's not entirely confident about mucking around with the Windows registry is to create a new Windows account and copy your old data across. (Unlike making registry changes, creating a new account can't do anything really nasty to your computer).

Scroll down to 'Fix Corrupt User Profile in Windows Vista' here and work through the instructions in 'Fix #1':
https://neosmart.net/wiki/corrupt-user-profile/

[goodgoalie]

Many thanks for that, Chris. Will brave that in daylight hours....