Replace Windows profile for an existing user

article #1457, updated 816 days ago

The scenario: a user has a corrupt Windows profile. We don’t want to delete the profile because it may have valuable data. We need to give the user a new one.

  1. Log into the PC as a different user, an administrator.
  2. Run regedit. Paste the following in the registry location bar near the top: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
  3. And hit Enter. Then Find (Edit/Find, or Ctrl-F) the username of the user you are working on.
  4. In the left pane, rename the container to .OLD
  5. Rename the user’s folder in C:\Users to .OLD as well.
  6. Log off, and log on as the user.

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