I have lost my user profile in XP.
Dell Inspiron 1501 laptop.
Windows XP.
Here's what happened:
While saving a picture someone had emailed to me, a folder was prompted in the "save in" box that I hadn't seen before. Had several files in it. I think it was probably a temp internet folder. I went into explorer to locate it and see what those files were. It wasn't where it had shown in the "save in" box. So, I thought it was a hidden file.
The user profile that it should have been in, was Documents and Settings, user " Richard". There was also another user profile called "All Users".
I right clicked on the Richard profile to look at it's properties. On the general tab at the bottom, there is attributes. "Read only" was checked. Thinking that if I checked "hidden", it would show me the other files. Wrong guess on my part.
Now, the "Richard" profile is gone. "All Users" is still there. With "Richard" gone, most of my desktop, icons and such, are gone. Quick launch buttons are gone. My Documents and My Pictures folders are gone.
Upon startup: Error message: "Unable to create C:\Documents and Settings\Richard\Local Settings\Application Data\BVRP Software\Net Waiting\MoHlog.txt file."
I click "OK", and the same message appears again. Click "OK" again, and it goes away.
Outlook Express will not open, first error message is: "Outlook Express could not be started. The application was unable to open the Outlook Express message store. Your computer may be out of memory or your disk is full. Contact Microsoft support for further assistance. (0x800C012E. 5)"
Followed by a second error message: "Outlook Express could not be started because MSOE.DLL could not be initialized. Outlook Express may not be installed correctly."
Internet Explorer opens and functions, but favorites are gone. Firefox opens and functions, bookmarks are gone. Firefox gives this error message before it will open: "Alert: Could not initialize the application's security component. The most likely cause is problems with files in your application's profile directory. Please check that this directory has no read/write restrictions and your hard disk is not full or close to full. It is recommended that you exit the application and fix the problem. If you continue to use this session, you might see incorrect application behaviour when accessing security features."
The hard drive is nowhere near full, is about 15% full. RAM is more than adequate. 896 mb. This is not a gaming computer, used mostly for internet, email, and some pictures stored on it.
I'm at a loss here……… what have I done to this machine?
Is "Richard" retrievable intact?
Thank you for any help you may be able to offer to me.
Welcome Eeyore. Sounds like a real mess with probably a simple explanation. Why don't you try this.
How to show hidden and system files in Windows XP:
Open My Computer, then click the Tools menu, then click Folder Options.
In the Folder Options window, click the View tab.
In the Advanced Settings window:
Select Show Hidden Files and Folders.
Uncheck Hide extensions for known file types.
Uncheck Hide protected operating system files.
Click OK, and close the My Computer window.
Now, open My Computer, navigate back to C:\Documents and settings, and right-click the Richard folder, click Properties. Uncheck the hidden option and click, OK. Reboot your computer and see if you still have problems.
This is a strange effect for only making a folder hidden, so I somewhat suspect you also made files read-only somehow. Although, I do not want you to uncheck the read-only option in the properties window at this time, if at all. Please try unchecking the hidden attribute, reboot, and see if the problem is resolved. Thank you.
Thanks guys.
Question, I've just unchecked "hidden" in the attributes. A window popped up with this question:
"You have chosen to make the following attribute changes:
unhide
Do you want to apply this change to this folder only, or do you want to apply it to all subfolders and files as well?
There are 2 options to check:
Apply changes to this folder only
Apply changes to this folder, subfolders and files."
The second choice has been preselected. Which should I select?
Mohit, would you mind explaining what the code you listed does?
Not at all Apple. The code consists of three lines, so I will explain in brief what they do.
cd\ - This line changes the directory to the main directories under the drive letter namely Program Files, Documents and Settings and WINDOWS. The default directory that command prompt directs to is C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.
attrib -h +r -a Documents and Settings - This command will modify various attributes of a specified file / folder which in this case is the Documents and Settings folder. The extensions and the - and + signs are equivalent to checking or unchecking a box. Here is an article that explains it better.
exit - This exits the command prompt window.
I asked Eeyore to save it as a batch file as this saves the time and effort of typing the commands manually. And I used this method as some of the files and folders cannot be modified through conventional methods. This is where such commands can come in useful.
Here are the results of appleoddity's fix.
Okay, desktop icons are back and appear to function. I have my pictures, documents, etc. all back I think. Quick launch buttons are still missing.
Still getting some error messages……..
Outlook Express is still unusable, same error messages appearing and it won't open.
Internet explorer is working, favorites did come back too.
Firefox didn't change, same error messages and bookmarks are still gone.
Mohit, would you mind explaining what the code you listed does?
attrib -h +r -a Documents and Settings - This command will modify various attributes of a specified file / folder which in this case is the Documents and Settings folder. The extensions and the - and + signs are equivalent to checking or unchecking a box. Here is an article that explains it better.
Hi Mohit. I do understand what the commands do. I was hoping you would explain what it was trying to accomplish.
With my understanding, the above command will remove the hidden attribute, set the read-only attribute, and remove the archive attribute on the doc and settings folder.
First of all, the doc and settings folder has not been hidden according the the OPs info. If you set the read only attribute on the doc and settings folder you will prevent users from being able to be created or be deleted. And the archive attribute is significant only to backup software to locate what files have been backed up or not already. No folders contained in the doc and settings folder will be affected. The path "Documents and settings" contains spaces and attrib would probably not recognize the above command at all without containing that path in quotes.
A more likely command to accomplish what I think your idea behind this is, would be:
attrib -h -r "c:\documents and settings\Richard" /s (Notice the quotes required for paths with spaces when using DOS commands)
The above command will remove the hidden attribute, and the read only attribute, for the Richard folder as well as all files and folders contained in the Richard folder. (The /s command processes subfolders)
If I am wrong in my understanding, please explain.
Hello Apple. I am still learning so please bear with me.
With my understanding, the above command will remove the hidden attribute, set the read-only attribute, and remove the archive attribute on the doc and settings folder.
First of all, the doc and settings folder has not been hidden according the the OPs info. If you set the read only attribute on the doc and settings folder you will prevent users from being able to be created or be deleted. And the archive attribute is significant only to backup software to locate what files have been backed up or not already. No folders contained in the doc and settings folder will be affected.
A more likely command to accomplish what I think your idea behind this is, would be:
attrib -h -r "c:\documents and settings\Richard" /s (Notice the quotes required for paths with spaces when using DOS commands)
That is quite right. I don't have any references to quote from so I looked at my computer that was running fine and configured the command accordingly to match the attributes. To cross check from doing any harm, I checked the attributes of another computer and they are the same too. The Read Only attribute is checked and yet my computer has no problems whatsoever in writing data to the folders.
Besides, I used the attributes to apply to the "Documents and Settings" folder as I was not sure of the name of the user directory. The settings might have been incorporated into the "All Users" folder so I put the attributes to assign uniformity.
My apologies if the code was harmful. It was not my intention.
That is quite right. I don't have any references to quote from so I looked at my computer that was running fine and configured the command accordingly to match the attributes. To cross check from doing any harm, I checked the attributes of another computer and they are the same too. The Read Only attribute is checked and yet my computer has no problems whatsoever in writing data to the folders.
Besides, I used the attributes to apply to the "Documents and Settings" folder as I was not sure of the name of the user directory. The settings might have been incorporated into the "All Users" folder so I put the attributes to assign uniformity.
My apologies if the code was harmful. It was not my intention.
– Mohit
No problem at all. Files and folders, when looking at the properties through windows explorer often times show the Read Only property checked. I've questioned this in the past, and I would have to research it again to provide you with concrete information. But, trust me, if that folder was really read-only, there would be some major trouble. I believe the reason why read-only looks checked is because a file or folder below the current folder may be marked as read-only. Don't quote me on that, and it is certainly worth investigating.
The command you provided wouldn't cause any harm, because attrib will simply come back with an error "Parameter format not correct," because the path wasn't contained in quotes. Thank you for your help though, and I didn't mean to make you type up a big long explanation about those commands.
No problem at all. Files and folders, when looking at the properties through windows explorer often times show the Read Only property checked. I've questioned this in the past, and I would have to research it again to provide you with concrete information. But, trust me, if that folder was really read-only, there would be some major trouble. I believe the reason why read-only looks checked is because a file or folder below the current folder may be marked as read-only. Don't quote me on that, and it is certainly worth investigating.
Lol, you can't expect a sixteen year old to find a way around all that, can you? Thanks for the information though; I will certainly research into it when I can spare the time.
Time to get this back on track. Eeyore, please try the instructions suggested by Mozilla and see if they help or not. Also, are the bookmarks the same that you use in IE or are they different? If they are similar, then you could try re-importing them in Firefox and see if it resolves the issue or not.
– Mohit
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Please try unchecking the hidden attribute, reboot, and see if the problem is resolved. Thank you.
