Moved user profile location, now I can't add a user

Question

While reinstalling Windows 7 on my new SSD, I decided to move my user profiles to one of my HDDs. I followed this guide:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/124198-user-profiles-create-move-during-windows-7-installation.html

I ran into the slight hiccup of not being able to log into my account - the seemingly common issue of the User Profile Service failing, as described by M$ here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947215.

I did some fiddling with the registry from recovery mode, I don't remember all of them, but under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList I changed; Default to E:\Default, ProfilesDirectory to E:\, ProgramData and Public to E:\Public.

Also, within my key in the ProfileList key, I changed my ProfileImagePath to E:\Username1, as well as some other changes I don't remember. Somehow I got my account to work just about fine.

However, I tried to add another account (I also changed their ProfileImagePath to E:\Username2), and they can't log in. As soon as they try to log in, they are logged out again.

I followed the suggestions here: Windows 7 automatically logs out when logging in, but even new profiles have the same issues.

How can I fix this?

Answer 1

I see 3 things to try. I will list them in the order I would try them:

1. If you have a backup of the registry, restore it.
2. Are there any restore points? If so, try to restore to one of them and see what happens.
3. Re-install Windows. Probably not what you want to do, but it would fix your problem! :)