Troubleshooting Change and Configuration Management

Roaming User Profile Lost and User Left with Temporary Profile

A user logs on and his or her configuration and settings from his or her roaming user profile are not present. Instead, the user is left with a temporary profile.

Possible Causes:

The user registry hive has been corrupted.
It is the first time the user has logged on to a computer, and the roaming user profile is not available.

Diagnostic Tests:

Check to see if the user registry hive is corrupted. If this is the case, the user's local profile folder is renamed Username.bak. There are events written in Event Viewer when the user's registry hive is corrupted. Open the Event Viewer snap-in on the user's computer (Eventvwr.msc), and check the system log for the following events:

Event ID:    1000

Category:    None

Text:    Windows failed to load your profile because it may be corrupted. Contact your Administrator.

Event ID:    1000

Category:    None

Text:    Windows cannot find the profile and is logging you on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off.

To check to see that the user can connect to the server that contains the appropriate roaming user profile file share

Ping this computer by the server's IP address to test base-level IP connectivity.
Ping this computer by server name to test Domain Name System (DNS) name resolution.
Use the net view command to view this computer to see the available shares (this also confirms if the user has rights to access). You should be able to see the share name that stores the roaming user profile.