Wrong desktop

[Fred Claus]

A customer of mine recently had a power outage. Now when his computer boots, it's not the correct desktop, and the start menu doesn't work. I tried Dism as well as rebooting. Nothing works. What am I missing?

 

[trevm999]

Is it booting into a temp profile? I think they usually give a popup when you log in, and in the profile list in the registry you should see an entry for their original profile and one for their temp profile

 

[Fred Claus]

Is it booting into a temp profile? I think they usually give a popup when you log in, and in the profile list in the registry you should see an entry for their original profile and one for their temp profile

No indication that it's a temp profile.

 

[callthatgirl]

Maybe check the Windows updates?

 

[timeshifter]

I'd try getting to a command line and creating a new profile.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Boot a Win PE and have a look around I'm betting on a corrupted profile.

 

[fabs]

That should be an easy fix.
Open Regedit,
Go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList key
You will get similar keys under “profile list”, however one key may end with a “.bak”. This key is your original profile one. Example: "SID-1213428093-345618312-2235-148770.bak". The one without ".bak" is your current temp profile key (which currently logged on) Example: "SID-1213428093-345618312-2235-148770"

Rename the without ".bak" key, by adding a ".temp" suffix at the end. Ex : "SID-1213428093-345618312-2235-148770″ => "SID-1213428093-345618312-2235-148770.temp″

Remove ".bak" from the other key. Ex : "SID-1213428093-345618312-2235-148770.bak" => "SID-1213428093-345618312-2235-148770"

Then, log off and restart the computer. This time, it should log on to the right profile. If not, then it may definitely be corruped and need to be rebuilt.

 

[Blue House Computer Help]

There's a function to do this automatically in the free version of UVK that works really well.

UVK Help - System repair

UVK Help

www.carifred.com

 

[Fred Claus]

Get this. I explained to the customer what the issue was and what he said floored me. He said "Let's not bother fixing it. I'm just going to buy a new computer."

Wow, must be nice to have that kind of money.

 

[ThatPlace928]

Get this. I explained to the customer what the issue was and what he said floored me. He said "Let's not bother fixing it. I'm just going to buy a new computer."

Wow, must be nice to have that kind of money.

Did he offer to donate the "bad" laptop to you? I've had cases where customers were frustrated with their old ones and bought new ones from me, then left the old one with me. I keep them for parts or, if they're worth refurbishing and upgrading, I do that.

 

[Fred Claus]

I did actually. I offered to "Recycle" the old one for him. I know it's just a matter of fixing the profile so all I have to do is wipe the drive and reinstall windows. Maybe I'll use it as an office computer. Plus I will have a donor computer to test out The UVK fix that was mentioned.

 

[britechguy]

I've had cases where customers were frustrated with their old ones and bought new ones from me, then left the old one with me.

I've more than once offered to take "the old one" off their hands. If it's of the age where it's recycling fodder, then I make sure I've wiped the drive and send it there.

If not, I still make sure the data is wiped, but feel free to do with them as I see fit. "One man's trash is another man's treasure."

 

[GTP]

Get this. I explained to the customer what the issue was and what he said floored me. He said "Let's not bother fixing it. I'm just going to buy a new computer."

Wow, must be nice to have that kind of money.

Did he offer to donate the "bad" laptop to you? I've had cases where customers were frustrated with their old ones and bought new ones from me, then left the old one with me. I keep them for parts or, if they're worth refurbishing and upgrading, I do that.

It amazed me how many clients thought that when Windows got corrupted it meant the actual computer was broken and needed replacement.
As mentioned above I got quite a few donors that just needed a reinstall. Their loss my gain.

 

[ThatPlace928]

It amazed me how many clients thought that when Windows got corrupted it meant the actual computer was broken and needed replacement.
As mentioned above I got quite a few donors that just needed a reinstall. Their loss my gain.

Sometimes they're just ready for a new one and the cost to repair is more than they want to invest. They'd rather put that money into something better and faster and are generally more than willing to donate but I give them $10-$20 off to buy a refurbished and upgraded laptop from me. I've not had anyone turn me down.