Windows Vista help?

[reppu]

My little sister called me at 3:20am in a panic. She was crying and I honestly thought someone had died (though why she'd call me first, I don't know). Turns out her computer locked her out of her profile and forced her into a temporary one. In typical college student fashion, she has a project due next Monday, and now she can't access her profile. Hence the panic. Goodness, my heart almost stopped!

So yeah, all you Windows Vista savvy folks, anyone know what to do? Basically, there's only one profile, which is her's (the administrator's). Windows won't load her profile, and instead takes her to a temporary one. I looked online for solutions, but it seems the problem lies with folks deleting one of multiple profiles, which screws up the registry. I don't see how my sister's problem is the same, since she only has one profile? Any clues?

Comments

[sara-tanaquil.livejournal.com]

Has she tried starting up in Safe Mode? I seem to remember that worked for me when I had a similar problem (though I do have at least two profiles, and I use Windows 7). You can hit F8 on startup to access Safe Mode, I think.

She may or may not be able to fix the computer without doing a complete reinstall of Windows, but at least Safe Mode might let her access the data long enough to back it up to a flash drive or something.

[sara-tanaquil.livejournal.com]

Oh, and actually, come to think of it, when she's in the temporary profile, I don't think her data is actually locked away, it's just harder to find. Tell her to look for a Users folder or something like it -- her Desktop and Documents folders should be somewhere nested inside that folder, maybe several levels down.

[kashewmoo.livejournal.com]

I second this. While she's in the temporary profile (I'm assuming it's a guest or something similar), go to Computer > C: (or whatever her main drive is) > Users > Name of her profile, and she will have access to her desktop, my documents, etc. (She may have to input her password, if it's password protected, but otherwise she should be able to get in.)

As for getting onto her profile... hrm. Yeah, start it up in safe mode and see if that works. Otherwise, I'm not sure what else to suggest. I'll search around on Google, too.

[reppu.livejournal.com]

Yeah, after hours of near tears and sleepy internet searches, I finally thought of getting her into her User Profile through safe mode. Or rather, the HP tech guy on the online chat suggested we go safe mode, and then I thought of her user profile. She can still access it, so we got the info she'll need for the project, but she's doing it on Windows Movie Maker, and since she's in a temporary profile, pulling up the file gives her a bunch of angry red X marks along her movie timeline.

I was always a Mac person when it came to making movies, so I'm not exactly sure what her next step should be. Since it's a temporary profile, it won't actually save information, so she needs to complete everything in one go. But as for how to re-link and fix her movie, I have no idea. I'm still not sure what's wrong, but once I convinced her that all of her info wasn't lost, and we backed it up in a tangible place (thank GOD she had DVD-Rs around!), I was able to get her calmed and off the phone.

It's just weird that her computer would do that. I don't want to think about the process if we have to reinstall her OS (because I would have to do it, being the most "tech savvy" person in this house). She's gonna ask a friend to take her to Best Buy tomorrow to see the Geek Squad; I'm hoping it's a really easy fix, because sometimes the general customer service guys can do that without charging a huge fee. As long as she gets this project DONE, I not worried. Since the info is there, I can get to it and back it up, but I just don't want to have to take it that far.

Thanks for the tips you two! Safe mode usually solves most things, but it didn't work this time. It's like being separated from a pile of your favorite foods by a glass jelly wall; you can dip in and grab it, but you can't pull it out for you to eat. It's so frustrating!

EDIT: Wrong icon. Why do I even still have this icon? >__>

[februaryfour]

Geek Squad will get her sorted out, no biggie. They rock.

[nycmango.livejournal.com]

sorry to bother you here but I wanted to let you know I got my book today ^^ it was in perfect shape I loved it! ^^ Thanks so much love! :)

[jukebox-csi.livejournal.com]

I've seen this kind of thing on XP. Usually if you log off, then log back onto your userid, it'll clear up and log into your correct profile instead of the temporary one. Not sure if that will work on Vista, but might be worth a shot. May need to be actual log off instead of switch user.