Windows 7 user profile resetted at each login

After uninstalling and reinstalling a (buggy) software I'm working on, the following has happened:

When I rebooted and logged in the first time, the whole of my Users folder was wiped out: preferences, documents, etc. I have lost about 100go of data :(
I have logged out, logged in as another admin user, deleted my profile in \Users, deleted my profile in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList (as suggested here)
Now whenever I login, my user profile is wiped out and recreated. Any modification I make to my profile (desktop shortcuts, wallpaper...) is removed when I logout/login.
I have tried to login on another computer, and the same thing happens.
The AD admins have created another profile for me to logon with, and I don't seem to have this kind of problem with it.

With the two last points, I guess that my computer is not bugged, but it's my Active Directory profile that's problematic.
What can I do to cleanup my profile so it stops doing that ?

Thanks !

thomasb

Posted 2013-04-26T13:10:08.650

Reputation: 421

1Are you a domain user? Or is this a home computer? Also, Do you get the error "The User Profile Service failed the logon" – user-44651 – 2013-04-26T13:21:38.040

I'm a domain user. No, I don't get this error message. I have new information; I will update my question. – thomasb – 2013-04-26T16:07:13.210

What was that software doing? was it designed to delete user profiles? – jao – 2013-04-26T16:40:40.197

Maybe it's a setting in the ntuser.dat of your profile. ntuser.dat is your user's registry file. If that file is stored in your network profile and is loaded every time you sign in it would be the place to look. See this kb article on how to edit the ntuser.dat file.

– jao – 2013-04-26T16:43:07.347

No the software has nothing to do with user profiles. I will take a look at the kb article, thanks. – thomasb – 2013-05-06T07:30:12.217

Answers

The problem was "resolved" by creating a new domain user. It now works as it should (although I still have lost my settings and documents).

thomasb

Posted 2013-04-26T13:10:08.650

Reputation: 421

If you had not deleted your profile in the Users folder you could have copied your documents out of it. "Users\Username\My Documents" Most likely it created a new folder and you where logging in to that "Users\Username.001" you just had to go to the old folder to get the files. – Scott Chamberlain – 2013-05-06T08:11:47.000

You misread, unfortunately: I did not delete my profile, Windows did. The "first time" I logged in, my documents had disappeared. I had already searched in folders as you suggested, but no luck, nothing was there :'( – thomasb – 2013-05-06T11:51:07.210

I have never seen that happen before, only a new folder created with a extension on the end. Very odd. – Scott Chamberlain – 2013-05-06T11:52:07.487

Yes, under certain scenarios (I don't remember what I did), it did create profiles with .001, .002. But only after it wiped out my documents. It was easy to see, because I had about 10Gb of files in my documents, and the C: drive was almost full, but afterwards, it had 10Gb of free space. – thomasb – 2013-05-06T11:54:44.160

to get your documents back (or at least some of them) use a file recovery software. google it, there are several free ones. – Lorenzo Von Matterhorn – 2013-08-26T11:47:24.330

When facing such problems, I would advise returning to a restore point previous to the problematic software installation. if this is not an option, for any reason, you can always run sfc /scannow from an elevated command prompt to repair your windows installation.

Lorenzo Von Matterhorn

Posted 2013-04-26T13:10:08.650

Reputation: 2 137