Windows 10: Added User, original user / profile & settings disappeared

Upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 some months ago. Original profile did not require password to log in, and was not associated with a Google email or Microsoft account that I know of.

I added a user a couple of days ago (added a personal account of mine with my own password from my laptop) because software problem said try another user, and this laptop computer didn't have any other users. So I added one.

That was a mistake. After I "added a user" I could ONLY log on the computer with the NEW user. The old one, the profile, all the settings, the playlists, everything was gone. Like it never existed. There was and is no option to log on as the original. The computer became an extension of my laptop, with zero other option.

I had to add a third user and give it admin capabilities just to remove my laptop profile (which I didn't really want on this computer, I was just adding a user to "try another user" with a software problem). But all my original settings seem gone.

I can see additional users in Windows Media Player for instance, but it says I need permission to access those. Since it is impossible to log on as any other user except this latest (and third) user. I can't give myself permission to access those old playlists.

Adding a user should come with a warning.

If anyone has any ideas where I can recover the old settings, I'd be grateful. The threads I've seen around the web and here have directed to Windows 7 workarounds which do not work for my machine.

:)

 

Adding A User Has Wiped The Original User?

Hi,

It seems that the process of adding a family member is being done differently. We would like to have the exact error message that you're getting whenever you try to log in. This will definitely help us in determining the root cause of the issue.

In the meantime, to add someone to your family, click on this link
for the instructions.

Regards.

 

Adding A User Has Wiped The Original User?

My wife used the add family function to add me to her laptop but instead of ADDING it appears to have made me the user and removed her entirely as a user. Any idea how to remedy this? Also it's not letting me log in now, saying my password is incorrect,
but I can log in to my PC.

Thank you for any help.

 

Hello and welcome to the TenForums *Smile

It might be worth finding out all the users that are associated with your PC. To do this open a command prompt (right click on the Start button) and then type in the following command wmic useraccount list full

This will display all users on your system (including hidden ones) and if you paste the results here we can determine which accounts are still present. If you want to see more details of this process look in the tutorial: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html