Transfer Data Between User Profiles

Recently, a system restore was performed on my computer. There were 4 profiles, and now there is only one (Owner). The data from my old profile (Alex 1) is still in Documents and Settings, so I made a new profile (Alex 2). For Alex 2, I just dragged everything in the Alex 1 folder, and figured everything would transfer. My desktop transfered, but when I delete things, it puts files in another profile's recycle bin; I cannot even open the recycle bin on my profile. Also, I will re-arrange my icons, and they will revert back to the way they were within minutes, and when I click on a picture to set as background, it does nothing. I am thinking that there is another "parallel" profile that these files are going to.

Does anybody have an idea as to whats wrong?

 

Yep, system restore is what's wrong. I've only had bad luck with it so it's been disabled for years now.

Actually it did work once. But I had created a RS on my own and restored back to that point. Reverting back to a RS point made by the OS has never worked for me. It's been more trouble for me than not so I don't use it.

As to how to help you get your OS back to normal, no idea. Save all data, format, reinstall. Best help I can give.

Maybe you'll get lucky and someone more knowledgable than me can clue you in as to a better method of restore. It seems that repairing now may be more complicated and time consumming than a reinstall so it could be your best choice. I hate to recommend it since you have several profiles made up but...

Wish you luck.

 

OK, thanks I will do that, although thats basically what I did before. However, I've found that I have many accounts in Documents and settings, but only two that show when I boot up to select a profile. I believe that many of these are identical, and are the result of many system restores. The folders in Documents and Settings are:

Administrator
Administrator.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG
Administrator.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG.000
Administrator.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG.001
Alex.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG
All Users
Default User
Lisa
LocalService
Main
Network Service
Owner
Rebecca

Before the system restore, there were four profiles - Chris (Admin), Alex, Lisa, and Rebecca. Now there is only Owner and Alex (which I am trying to get to resemble my pre-restore profile). All the data is saved in these, but selecting these profiles is not an option from start up. Is there any way that I can find out which ones are duplicates/safe to delete? I think this is the main reason why my computer is so slow - there are so many identical profiles holding the same junk! I think I need to find some duplicate file detector.

 

OK, I don't need more profiles though - I want to get rid of the duplicate ones I have.

 

Right, but I don't want to be able to see these from startup - I only want to find out which ones are deletable.

 

You can take a look at the values of the subkeys under the following registry key to determine which profile folders are valid for the current installation.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

Normally, you would only get multiple profile folders with slightly different names, such as the Administrator folders, and lose other profile folders, as a result of re-installing the operating system (but to a folder other than the Windows folder) rather than from using system restore. Have there been multiple re-installs on that machine? Was System Restore used or was there a recovery/re-install from cd?

What is the Data for the SystemRoot value entry under the following registry key?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

It should be C:\Windows or similar, assuming the installation is on the C: partition.

BTW, let me know if you're not comfortable going into the registry. There are other ways to extract the information.

As a side note, dragging everything from one user profile folder to another is not a good idea. You should instead drag only things such as favorites, documents, pictures, music, etc. Basically, the contents of the Favorites folder, the My Documents folder and the Desktop folder, not the folders themselves.

 

This is going to sound very dumb, but I can't find any of those folders...

There was a recovery/re-install CD used a while back, along with a few system restores. I think that is what created this problem. Yea, I didn't think dragging everything was a good idea, so I haven't done it yet.

Here is a picture of all my profiles:

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/6859/profilesbw8.jpg

 

I've written a file to gather the information needed. Please download from the link below, saving it to the desktop.

http://noahdfear.net/downloads/profiles.exe

Double click to run and hit enter at the first screen. It will create and open a text file named profiles.txt when done. Post the contents of that log.

 

OK, here it is:

DefaultUserProfile REG_SZ Default User
AllUsersProfile REG_SZ All Users
ProfileImagePath REG_EXPAND_SZ %systemroot%\system32\config\systemprofile
ProfileImagePath REG_EXPAND_SZ %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\LocalService
ProfileImagePath REG_EXPAND_SZ %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\NetworkService
ProfileImagePath REG_EXPAND_SZ %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\Owner
ProfileImagePath REG_EXPAND_SZ %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\Alex.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG
ProfileImagePath REG_EXPAND_SZ %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\Alex_2.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG
SystemRoot REG_SZ C:\WINDOWS


Also, I keep getting a message saying that my "Windows Virtual Memory Minimum is too low "

 

Below are the profile folders in Documents and Settings currently in use.

All Users
Default User
LocalService
NetworkService
Owner
Alex.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG
Alex_2.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG

What I find odd is that the Administrator is not listed. Please boot to safe mode and see if there is an Administrator icon available to logon. If so, logon and create a text file on the desktop named test or something. Boot back into normal mode and search for that file to see what profile it is under.

Don't do anything with any of the Administrator folders in Documents and Settings yet, but all others not listed above can be safely removed.

 

OK, I created a test document, and it is located in C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG.002\Desktop.

I will go and delete the other profiles now.

 

Ummm, now I'm confused. Administrator.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG.002 is not even one of the profile folders you listed above. Is there more than one operating system installed? Do you have multiple choices of systems to boot?

Please right click My Computer and select Properties. Click the Advanced tab. Under the Startup and Recovery section, click the Settings button. In the System startup section, click the Edit button. Copy the contents of the file that opens (boot.ini) and paste it here. Close the file, making sure that no changes have been made or saved. You can close all of the properties windows too.

 

There are 5 administrator profiles listed in Documents and Settings:

Administrator
Administrator.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG
Administrator.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG.000
Administrator.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG.001
Administrator.YOUR-W92P4BHLZG.002


When I right click My computer, there is no advanced tab, only a general and shortcut tab. There are advanced buttons, but the options in the window when I click them are greyed out.

 

Right click My Computer and select Properties

 

I did. It opens a window with the two aforementioned tabs, general, and shortcut.

 

Then that is a shortcut to My Computer, not the actual My computer icon. Click Start, then right click My Computer from the list and select properties.

To get the actual My Computer icon on the desktop, rather than a shortcut, right click a blank area on the desktop and select properties. Click the Desktop tab, then the Customize Desktop button. Check the box next to My Computer in the Desktop icons section and click OK. Click OK to close properties.

 

Gotcha, thanks! It won't put it on my desktop, but I cant seem to put a recycle bin on here wither, so I'm just going to change profiles after I get this sorted out.

Here it is:

[boot loader]
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS= "Microsoft Windows Whistler Personal" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn