When you encounter a user account that spins forever trying to sign in on a computer that already has a local copy of their profile, here is a few steps to resolve the issues quickly without either data loss or the need to create a new Windows profile:
- Sign in on an account with Local Administrator rights
- Navigate to “C:\Users”
- Locate the profile folder of the user unable to sign in.
- Rename the folder (Usually I add “.old”)
- Sign out
- Sign in as the user who’s profile has not been working
- While signed in on this temporary profile, navigate back to “C:\Users”
- Rename their profile folder back to what it was originally
- Sign out
- You should now be able to sign in normally to that user with their profile intact.
Contributed by the excellent Joe Busby.