¶ User Unable to Sign In and Signed On as Temporary Account (Workgroup)
- Profile corruption (folders renamed, registry issues)
- Slow or failing network/disk access (especially if using redirected folders)
- Antivirus locking profile files
- Windows updates finishing in the background
- User Profile Service not loading properly
NTUSER.DAT file locked or used by another process
- Log out immediately
- Anything done in the temporary profile will not be saved.
- Restart the computer
- This usually clears the issue.
- Log in again
- Confirm that the problem is resolved.
- Open:
Event Viewer → Windows Logs → Application
- Look for Event IDs: 1508, 1509, 1511, 1515, 1542
- Path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
- Look for duplicate SIDs; one may have
.bak
- Rename the normal SID to
.bak2
- Rename the
.bak SID to remove .bak
- Path:
C:\Users\USERNAME
- Ensure the profile folder exists and contains user data
¶ 4. Check Disk Health and System Files
chkdsk /f /r
sfc /scannow
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
- Some antivirus software can lock the user profile.
- Consider temporarily disabling antivirus for testing.
- If the profile is corrupted:
- Create a new local profile
- Copy over user data (Documents, Desktop, Downloads, Outlook PSTs, etc.)
- Do not use profile migration tools like ProfWiz as they may carry over corruption.