Windows 10: Windows 11 update somehow scrambled or changed by user profile

I turned on my computer today and everything looked different on the desktop ... the appearance was different, all the file icons were gone, my taskbar personalization disappeared ... and in File Explorer "Documents" and "Desktop" were empty ... and my Firefox bookmarks were gone. Upon further investigation, the account signed in says it is XXXX, which is my correct profile but "Documents" is pointing to the TEMP profile instead of XXXX, so is Desktop, so is Firefox, etc. How can I get everything pointing to XXXX like it should so that I can actually use my computer again? If I look in File

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User.000 issue after updating to 1909

I'm one of the many people suffering from issues with user profiles after applying Update 1909 to Windows 10. I've read all the threads I can find on the topic here and have followed the suggestions, all to no avail. Any other thoughts are appreciated.

After applying Update 1909, the ProfileImagePath was changed to c:\users\User.000
One file that was always in use and couldn't be removed was left in c:\users\User (can't recall or find the exact file now), so I could never rename or remove the c:\user\User directory.

I followed the multiple suggestions from Brink and others:

• Rebooted at least 6 times
• Enabled hidden Administrator
• Booted into Safe Mode
• Changed ProfileImagePath
• Tried to rename c:\users\User but couldn't because a file was still in use
• Copied all data from c:\users\User.000 into c:\users\User
• Rebooted and had temporary profile
• Followed steps in Brink tutorial to change ImageProfilePath; rebooted with no change
• Restored using Restore Point from before Update 1909 - returned to single profile state (User.000)
• Removed each update that was installed individually and rebooted after each update removal - profile state never changed
• After all updates were removed, repeated the steps above with hidden Administrator, changing profile, etc. - same issue with file in use in c:\users\User
• Followed all steps above with hidden Administrator but without copying files from User.000 to User - same results

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

 

new account and The User Profile Service failed the sign in ; user profile cannot be loaded

Hello,

Thank you for your reply,

This issue might be due to the User profile Services, please follow the below and check.

I suggest you to Check the status of User profile services.

Steps:

• Press Windows + R to open Run command, type
  Services.msc and press Enter.
• Search for User Profile Service, right click on it and
  start the service.
• Also, set the Startup type to
  Automatic.
• Now check if you are able to log-in.

Hope it helps. Kindly update the status of this issue, we will be happy to assist you further.

 

Need help with changing name of user profile folder

I would like to change the name of the user profile folder. I have found and tried a few methods including one from Microsoft forums. None of them worked. I kept getting something about my User needing to sign out and back in again that there was a problem, so I would sign out and back in again and it didn't work. I think the reason is because Windows created a TEMP user and would log me in under that so there would be a folder named C/User/TEMP and still the original named folder of C/User/myuserfolder.

I found this on the forums here: Change Name of User Profile Folder in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials

The instructions are very similar to what I have tried. In the above post John W used safe mode. Do I need to go through all the steps again as listed in the post and then go into safe mode, or can I just use safe mode to change the folder name?

Also, are there newer instructions for how to do this with updates to Windows since the above thread was posted over a year ago?

Thanks in advance.