Bug in Vista that renames user profile (user account profile) as a backup

Reference to thread here


This issue seems to be caused by a horrendous bug in Vista that renames your User Account Profile as a backup, and then creates a new user account with the same name but with nothing in it. Here is a possible fix for this issue, but if it doesn't work, you may have to re-image the computer.

1. Boot up in Safe Mode. To do this, hit the F8 key while the computer is booting, and then scroll down to the "Safe Mode" option and press enter. On my computer the user account icon appeared, but bigger than normal, and I clicked it and it loaded my desktop in safe mode. It came up with an error bubble saying that my user account hadn't loaded properly, but i just ignored
this.

2. Click the Start Button and in the white "Start Search" space at the
bottom type "regedit" (without the quotation marks). This will open the registry editor.

3. In the left-hand pane, navigate by clicking the little triangles next to the following folders:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SOFTWARE
Microsoft
Windows NT
CurrentVersion
ProfileList

You should now have a list of folders all starting with S-1-5- and then a number.
(You might need to drag the divider between the 2 panes of the window across so you can read the whole folder name)
Look at the end of each name and you should see one with .bak at the end of it, and there will be another one above it with exactly the same name but without .bak at the end.
The one that's got .bak at the end is your old User Profile that Vista has now made into a backup, and the one without .bak after it is the new empty User Profile that Vista has created.
Just to check that this is the case, have a look in the right-hand pane for each of the 2 folders and look at what's written after "ProfileImagePath".
For the folder with .bak at the end it should say C:\Users\ and then your
usual User Account name, and for the one that doesn't have .bak at the end it
should say C:\Users\TEMP.

What you need to do now is to rename the folders in the left-hand pane so that the one with .bak at the end changes back to being the one containing your proper User Profile and the new one without .bak at the end becomes the
backup. Do do this follow the next step:

4. Right click on the folder with .bak at the end and then click "rename", and just change the ".bak" part to ".bk" - i.e. just remove the "a" from the middle - (this is just to allow you to change the other one to have .bak at
the end). Press enter or click on some blank part of the screen for the
change to take effect.
Then, right click the one that doesn't have .bak at the end and click
"rename". Remove the .bak from the end and press enter or click anywhere on some blank part of the screen to accept the change.
Then, right click on the one that now has .bk at the end, choose "rename" and add the "a" back into the middle, so it now has .bak at the end. Press
enter or click on blank park of screen to accept the change.
Close the regedit window.

5. Click the Start Button and then "Restart". It should work now. Fingers
crossed.

How to enable local administrator in Windows 7 using command line / scripting

1. Go to your Start menu and in “Accessories” list, open “Command Prompt” by right-clicking on its icon and choosing “Run as Administrator”

2. When the Command Prompt window appears, enter the command net user administrator /active:yes

3. When done, log out from your current account.

4. The Administrator account should now be present on your log in screen.

To turn the build in administrator account off, do the same except the command will be
net user administrator /active:no

A computer that is running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008 stops responding and hangs at the "Applying User Settings" stage of the logon process

Catch-22!!

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2379016

In the dump file, the service control manager is trying to start up the HTTP.sys while the HTTP.sys is actually waiting on the Cryptographic service. But this Cryptographic service has not started up yet. So Cryptographic service is trying to start up to handle to request from http.sys.

But as the service control manager is starting up the http.sys and can’t handle the startup request from Cryptographic service, this cause a deadlock.

Resolution

=============

So this issue can be resolved by add dependency for the http.sys to make sure this http.sys will only try to start up itself when the Cryptographic service is up.

Step as below:

1.Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP

2.On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click Multi-string Value.

3.Type DependOnService, and then press ENTER.

4.Right-click DependOnService, and then click Modify.

5.In the Value data box, type CRYPTSVC, and then click OK.

6.Restart the computer.

Note: The reason why we used the last known good and the server was fine may because in the last known good, the Cryptographic service somehow started up earlier than usual. But we still need to take the action plan above since we never known if sometimes the Cryptographic service will start up later than http.sys again.

Default Gateway disappearing after reboot

This is an interesting problem. It's a possible bug after applying Vista SP2.

Symptoms:
Manually added Default Gateway disappears upon reboot.

Cause:
Null or empty line in registry key "DefaultGateway | REG_MULTI_SZ"

Solution:

1. Start Regedit
2. Navigate to  HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\
3. Select CLSID of network adapter (you can identify your adapter by looking at the IPAddress registry Data field). 
4. Doubleclick "DefaultGateway" (You will see a list of all gateways that disappeared, especially if you've tried multiple gateways and rebooted a few times). Very likely the first line will be blank or empty. Remove this first empty line, click OK, exit regedit and reboot.