New Desktop appears while my own disappears

At first it was rare but it is happening more often as time goes by. Three
of us share the Vista Business computer and we all get an error message
saying that our desktop could not be configured and we are presented with a
"Welcome to ONECARE" message and some other ONECARE screens showing various
metrics. If we restart, we seem (so far) to be able to log in normally again
and our normal Desktop and settings appears.

Is this a common issue with an easy fix? If so please let me know. If not,
what should I do?

Thanks for all previous help...

Peter

Peter Max wrote:

> At first it was rare but it is happening more often as time goes by. Three
> of us share the Vista Business computer and we all get an error message
> saying that our desktop could not be configured and we are presented with
> a "Welcome to ONECARE" message and some other ONECARE screens showing
> various metrics. If we restart, we seem (so far) to be able to log in
> normally again and our normal Desktop and settings appears.
>
> Is this a common issue with an easy fix? If so please let me know. If not,
> what should I do?

Do you have Microsoft's Live OneCare installed? What are the "various
metrics"? If you have error messages (or dialogs), please quote them
exactly without paraphrasing.

The First Question Of Troubleshooting: If the problem is new, what changed
between the time things worked and the time they didn't?

The Second Question of Windows Troubleshooting: what is the malware/virus
status of the machine? If you think it is clean, what programs (and
versions) did you use to determine this?

Be sure the computer is clean:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/...moving_Malware

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

I have Live OneCare installed and it is up to date.

It is not a new problem but it has increased in frequency over the last
year.

The only error message says "Your user profile was not loaded correctly. You
have been logged on with a temporary profile." The "other metrics" I
mentioned are a number of screens from Live OneCare: one welcoming me, one
telling me that LOC will renew automatically for six months free and the LOC
screen stating that everything is up to date and that the last backup, etc.,
was this week.

I have scanned the machine with Live OneCare antivirus, PC Tools Antivirus,
and a web scan by Kaspersky.

Is there anything in the registry that would give me a clue as to the source
of this problem?

Thanks,
Peter


"Malke" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Peter Max wrote:
>
>> At first it was rare but it is happening more often as time goes by.
>> Three
>> of us share the Vista Business computer and we all get an error message
>> saying that our desktop could not be configured and we are presented with
>> a "Welcome to ONECARE" message and some other ONECARE screens showing
>> various metrics. If we restart, we seem (so far) to be able to log in
>> normally again and our normal Desktop and settings appears.
>>
>> Is this a common issue with an easy fix? If so please let me know. If
>> not,
>> what should I do?
>
> Do you have Microsoft's Live OneCare installed? What are the "various
> metrics"? If you have error messages (or dialogs), please quote them
> exactly without paraphrasing.
>
> The First Question Of Troubleshooting: If the problem is new, what changed
> between the time things worked and the time they didn't?
>
> The Second Question of Windows Troubleshooting: what is the malware/virus
> status of the machine? If you think it is clean, what programs (and
> versions) did you use to determine this?
>
> Be sure the computer is clean:
> http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/...moving_Malware
>
> Malke
> --
> MS-MVP
> Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
> http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ
>

Peter Max wrote:

> I have Live OneCare installed and it is up to date.
>
> It is not a new problem but it has increased in frequency over the last
> year.
>
> The only error message says "Your user profile was not loaded correctly.
> You have been logged on with a temporary profile." The "other metrics" I
> mentioned are a number of screens from Live OneCare: one welcoming me, one
> telling me that LOC will renew automatically for six months free and the
> LOC screen stating that everything is up to date and that the last backup,
> etc., was this week.
>
> I have scanned the machine with Live OneCare antivirus, PC Tools
> Antivirus, and a web scan by Kaspersky.
>
> Is there anything in the registry that would give me a clue as to the
> source of this problem?

The information about the user profile error message was crucial and
illustrates perfectly why quoting said messages exactly is important. Your
user profiles are becoming corrupted and you are being set up by Windows
with temporary profiles. That is why everything looks new - in those
temporary profiles, it is! So the issue has nothing to do with OneCare and
everything to do with the profile corruption.

Since all of your user accounts are experiencing this and it is happening
more frequently - and because you say the machine is malware-free - most
probably this is hardware-based. Back up your data *now* and run hardware
diagnostics, starting with the hard drive and then the RAM.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/...ardware_Tshoot

Even if all the hardware tests good, back up your data and do a clean
install of Windows (or restore your computer to factory condition using
whatever method the computer mftr. provided). If the profile corruption
continues, you will know that hardware is the cause and the tests you ran
just didn't catch it. If the problem is solved, then something you had
installed was causing the issue. If the machine is under warranty,
bottom-tier tech support is going to tell you to do this factory restore
anyway so you might as well do it first.

If you can't do the work yourself (and there is no shame in admitting this
isn't your cup of tea), take the machine to a professional computer repair
shop (not your local equivalent of BigComputerStore/GeekSquad).

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ