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Fix ‘User Profile Cannot Be Loaded’

March 11, 2012

A problem we are often asked about is one where it becomes impossible on Windows Vista and Windows 7 PC’s to log on, the following error message is commonly displayed:

“The user profile service failed the logon”
“User profile cannot be loaded”

This is usually caused by Microsoft Windows creating a backup user profile, and then attempting to use it to log in instead of the correct profile. The fix is reasonably easy to perform although it does entail a degree of registry editing

WARNING – The instructions below require that the Windows Registry be edited – an incorrectly configured Registry can cause your computer not to boot at all, please only attempt this fix if you are confident that you do this correctly and you have sufficient backups of your data. Chimpytech cannot be help responsible for any errors that may occur from using these instructions.

  1. Start your computer in ‘Safe Mode’ by repeatedly presssing ‘F8’ when you switch it on.
  2. When presented with the login screen, log in to any account (even the one with the problem will work) and cancel any suggestion to perform a System Restore.
  3. Once you are into Windows, click the Windows Orb, and type regedit into the search box.
  4. Click the ‘Regedit’ option in the search results to run the Registry Editor.
  5. Navigate to the Registry Hive:
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionProfileList.
  6. In the left hand pane you will see a bunch of entries that start with S-1-5…
  7. Two entries will be almost the same, with the only difference being that one has a ‘.bak’ extension.
  8. To fix the problem you need to swap the ‘.bak’ extension around.
  9. Right click the one with the ‘.bak’ extension, select ‘Rename’ and change ‘.bak’ to ‘.bk’.
  10. Right click the one with no extension, select ‘Rename’ and add ‘.bak’ to the end.
  11. Right click the one with the ‘.bk’ extension, and remove the extension entirely.
  12. Close the Registry Editor, and re-boot your PC.
  13. Everything should now be fully working.

Updated: February 23, 2014 at 10:11 pm
Tags: Loading User Profile Error, Profile Loading Error, User Profile Error
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