Windows 10: Can't log out of local account

For a couple months I've had a single account without password protection - never had to purposefully log out - just shut down. I added another account a couple days ago. Now the PC hangs up with a blank screen for about 5 minutes when I try to log out. Eventually the PC wakes up, but the logout has failed.

The only thing I see in the event log are a lot of the ubiquitous DistributedCOM 10016 errors, many with the userid of the user I'm trying to log out. Is there likely to be a connection? I've never noticed any external problem associated with the 10016 errors so I've never tried the rather long an (for me) complicated fixes. Should I try to fix this error, or would that be wasted effort?

Is there anything else I should do to debug this problem?

I think I'll try shutting down, but I'm not sure I'll be able to start back up.

:)

 

Log out of local account

Hi,

Logging in an account to the Windows Store will automatically bound your local account with your Microsoft account. You can log in to the

web version of the WindowsStore instead to prevent this issue from recurring. To log out an account of the Windows Store, kindly follow these steps:

• Open Windows Store.
• Click your account icon beside the Search box.
  
  
  
  
• Click your profile.
  
  
  
  
• Click Sign out.

Now, proceed in removing your Microsoft account and password by following these steps:

• Go to Settings>Account>Your email and accounts.
• Click Sign in with a local account instead and follow the on-screen instructions.
• After setting up the new local account, go back to Settings>Account>Your email and accounts.
• Select your email account and click Remove.

Should you have more concerns, feel free to post.

Regards.

 

Log out of local account

Before you delete an old User account, make sure to transfer or back the files up from that User account first as it will be deleted too upon deleting the User account. To transfer files from a User account, follow these steps:

• Open the User account that is about to be deleted.
• Copy the necessary files and paste it to C:\Users\Public.

After doing so, you're now ready to delete the old User account. To delete an old
User account, kindly follow the steps given by SujataMoktan on this

link.

If you have more questions, feel free to ask.

 

The error is usually related to missing permissions, do you have admin or standard account?
My guess, it can not end some running software, try to run this as admin in CMD, in that account:

reg add "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v "AutoEndTasks" /t REG_SZ /d "1" /f
reg add "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v "HungAppTimeout" /t REG_SZ /d "10000" /f
reg add "HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop" /v "WaitToKillAppTimeout" /t REG_SZ /d "20000" /f
reg add "HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control" /v "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" /t REG_SZ /d "20000" /f

 

Both accounts have admin authority. You could be right about not being able to end some running software, but that in itself is worrisome. I think I an going to restore my PC back to before I defined the troublesome account. I had some problems defining the account and may have messed things up.

 

It took me a while, but I did a recovery using a week-old backup, defined the new account, and all is well.