How to regenerate deleted domain user login accounts on a Windows 7 machine?
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sábado, 03 de marzo de 2012 4:15
I wanted to regenerate domain user login accounts on a laptop because I didn't like the way some things were set up, and figured it was easiest to do it from scratch. While logged on as domain administrator, I deleted the user folders in C:\User, and removed the users' local accounts from Control Panel; Users. I naively expected that logging off, and logging on as the user would cause the user accounts and folders to be recreated. That didn't work.
I researched the KB and found that user registry entries are stored in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\
I deleted the registry folders and keys that corresponded to the users (not administrator) in \ProfileList, and \ProfileGuid.
The C:\Users\Administrator account folder had several extra sets of NTUSER.DAT files, which I was able to delete. Similarly, there were lots of NTUSER.DAT files in C:\Windows\ServiceProfiles\ I deleted all but the administrator NTUSER.DAT files from the LocalService and NetworkService folders.
When I try to logon as the user, I get the error message, "User Profile Service service failed the logon. User Profile cannot be loaded" The users are unable to use the machine - only the administrator can logon successfully. The user's registry keys are regenerated after each user logon attempt.
What should I do next? I would ideally like to eliminate whatever is preventing Win7 from just regenerating the user accounts like they are logging in for the first time.
Radical options include: 1) going back to a Windows Restore Point, but I doubt that will help, 2) I have a registry backup that I could restore, but that will just put me back closer to the starting place without the C:\User folders, 3) I could do a Windows 7 Repair installation, but that seems drastic.