This applies only to Active Directory and New Roaming Profiles:
I just ran into this exact same problem: after setting up the profile path in Active Directory, the user recieves an error that they are using a temporary profile. This ultimatly had to do with the “profile path” I had entered \\sbserver\usershares\%username%
.
The server will try to append and extension indicating the profile/windows version to the path, in my case it was .V2
making the path \\sbserver\usershares\john.V2
. Unfortunately, the user does not have permission to modify the “UserShares” folder so a temporary profile was used for that session. This can be resolved by adding a trailing backslash making the profile path a folder named \\sbserver\usershares\john\.V2\
. To make thing more windows like, I ultimately made the profile path \\sbserver\usershares\%username%\PROFILE
and windows translated this to \\sbserver\usershares\john\PROFILE.V2
.
This applies to existing roaming profile that started acting up:
For roaming profiles that started acting up, you will be heading for more of an up hill battle: the profile can exist on multiple machines, and the server, and will replicate from machine to server to machine. You will want to rename the user profile folder on the server or current workstation as this is the current copy. From there, go to each and every workstation that has the profile in question log in, and rename it. Once the use logs in again, it will create a fresh new profile. Copy his documents, favorites, PSTs, and so on back into his new profile. Make sure to do this on all machines that have a copy of the profile, otherwise a login on the wrong machine could corrupt his profile again.
Workgroup/standalone computers:
This is usually due to a corrupt user profile, corrupt default profile, corrupt user account, file system, or windows problems. Start by renaming the profile and letting windows create a new profile. Copy back the users data. The second step is to rename the users profile directory, delete the user, create a new user, and copy the users data back.
A fatally corrupted file system can be causing user profile issues. Run a check disk and retry the proceeding steps. If that fails, windows could be to blame. But always give web searches a good try before blowing away Windows.
Be careful with deleting "Unknown User". I had done profile migration to a new user (keeping the directory but assigning it to a different user), and the old, non-existing user was still linked to the directory. Windows will happily delete the entire directory, except files in use (for example your Outlook file if you're lucky). – Stijn – 2011-10-03T14:07:30.717