Hi Dean,

1) Before doing anything, restart the computer 2 or 3 times to see whether it’s going back to your old correct profile. Go to next step if this doesn’t work.

2) Rename the temp profile registry and revert back the old registry settings for the correct profile. This method works most of the time in Workgroup and domain environment.

a) Log in with temp profile.
b) Start registry editor by typing regeditin find box of Windows 7.
c) Navigate the following location.


d) You will see similar keys under profile list, but one with .bak, as shown below.


e) The key with .bak is for the correct old profile. Currently your Windows 7 computer logged in with fresh (temporary) profile with same key. So, rename the new profile key ( which is not having.bak) and remove .bak from correct profile key. See below.


f) That’s it. Log off and log in (or restart) with your user name and password. You must get your correct profile with icons and profile settings back in Windows 7.

Still if Windows 7 computer loads with temporary profile and creates a registry key with .bak, that means user profile is really corrupted and Operating System is not reading it properly.

3) Now repair the corrupted files. Usually the corrupted ‘Ntuser’ files cause this issue. So, run the check disk for partition which is having user profile.

First, you need to open Windows Explorer in Windows 7 or File Explorer in Windows 8. Then, right click (or press and hold) the drive you want to check for errors and select Properties .

In the partition’s Properties window, go to the Tools tab. The first section is named Error checking. This where you launch the disc error checking wizard. In Windows 8, you there is Check button.


In Windows 7, the same button is named Check now.

Pressing it will launch the error checking wizard.



After restarting for check disk, if you see corrupted entries and repairing process inside your user profile folder, then you can hope for good news here. If it finds and repairs any files especially Ntuser files, you may get your old Windows 7 profile back.

If above steps do not help you out, then you need to create a new profile with new user name.

4) Create new user name in non domain (workgroup environment) from control panel or computer management. Make sure to add the new user to administrators group.
Login with new user name and start copying your old data from old profile.

Go to Advanced settings of System as shown below, click on Settings (user profiles), select the corrupted user profile which is not loading properly in Windows 7, then press Delete button. Delete button will be enabled only if you login with different user account.






This will remove the entire user profile and related user SID from computer including the registery keys. You can cross check the proper removal of user account (SID) by checking the C:\Users folder. Once it is remove properly, restart the computer and login with same user name (which was not loading earlier). The computer should create a new user profile as this is the first time the user is logging on. You need to copy back your old important data to new profile and set email outlook etc, if required.

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Lokesh