Windows 7 Profile Failure

[Qui-Gon John]

So the error "The User Profile Service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded." has been plaguing me lately.

My laptop had it a few days ago. I got to REPAIR YOUR COMPUTER, did a System Restore and it was fine. But the enxt day it happened again. I did the same thing and got it working. But then I did some research on this problem and one person recommended REGEDIT and changing RefCount to "0" in my profile entry. But a couple boots later the problem returned. So I created a new profile and halfway set it up. But I did not bite the bullet and move all my files to it and then delete the old profile. Since then, it has been working correctly. Windows boots, I choose my old profile and it loads.

Today I helped someone who was having the exact same problem, with Windows 7 Profile, same error. I created a new profile, moved all here files over, configured the various user settings, then deleted the old profile. I shutdown and restarted 5 times once I was all done (not counting the times while I was doing the work). After the last time, I made a couple minor adjustments in Word, Excel (time for saves and other minor stuff). I cleared all the restore points, shutdown. On the next startup, the problem returned with the new profile. I was able to do a System Restore and get into Windows. So at this point I created another Administrator account, which I named TempUser, and with this person starting Windows, and clicking their own profile, it seems to be working fine.

Has anyone come across anything like this? Have any ideas what might be causing it or how to fix it for good?

I should note that neither my laptop nor this persons has been doing Windows Updates for a while. So very unlikely some update caused it. And I did a thorough check for viruses (MSE) and malware (MBAM) along with visually looking in Program Files, Program Files (x86), Program Data, User Folders and Windows Folders for any obvious malware or remnants.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Have run across it hundreds and hundreds of times over the years. Typically it's on an older computer, with a hard drive beginning to get worn and tattered. Other times, corruption of <something> in the profile.

99% of the time you can get around this by doing the registry edit
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
Finding the profile, comparing the path, swapping last good one with the .BAK on a rename. There's a kajillion guides found via Google-fu with pictures on how to do this.

Once done ensure profile is clean from malware, empty the various temp folders within the directory, and I typically suspect the hard drive and clone it to a new one.

[Qui-Gon John]

Part of what I did on my laptop was based on a google search, same registry location, but it said change refcount to 0. But the weird thing is the one I did for this other person. As I said, I made her a new profile, coped all her stuff into it, configured various things like mouse pointers, desktop icons etc. Then deleted her oriiginal profile. Then shutdown and restarted 5 times, all good. Then after making a restore point and a few minor Word/Excel tweaks, another shutdown/restart and the error cropped up with this new profile. After I made a second profile, (but not using it) and was able to get it working. On mine, I have 2 profiles, my original and a new one I had planned to move over to. But since putting it like that, I have shutdown/restarted several times, (choosing my original profile each time) and it continues to work fine.