Help Microsoft profile

[Guest]

Switched the computer on this morning & all my profile has disappeared. All emails etc & settings.

Reset my preferences but then on restart I am back to square one.

Despair has set in. Help what do I do. Moved this year & got rid of all reference books.

Help.

Laurie

[Guest]

Questions first Laurie if I may,

What version of Windows do you use?

Do you use a username and password to access windows on startup?

Did the computer shut down as per usual previous to this problem?

Did you install any software, or have updates previous to this problem?

Have you got the same programs available in your list as usual?

Have you had any suspicious emails, and have you opened them.?

Hopefully I can suss this out for you, be better if I could sit at your comp and twiddle but you're a bit far away. :-)

[Guest]

or could the battery be stone dead on the motherboard,okay its a long shot but sometime the info in the ram gets screwed up and ends up forgetting

[Guest]

Thanks to you both.

Colin answering in order.

Windows XP with all up dates automatically installed.

No user name or pass word just strat auto.

This is probably the problem! I Switched the power off in the middle of shut down.

Nothing installed recently. No up dates.

All progammes are working. Printers working. All things such as screen profiling are back to default.

Only open emails which I know (hopefully) are genuine.

All received & sent emails are absent

All address book email addresses are absent.

Email account had to be reset.

All resets disappear on close down. On Booting all returns to default settings.

In all anything which I have set up for my personal use of the computer has gone.

Grateful for you interest.

Laurie

[Guest]

Laurie

Hope this helps

[Guest]

OK then, David's link is a good start, and you should try that.

Ole mentioned the battery, this is a little battery that sits on the mother board and retains cmos information, this "could" be the issue if the system loses any setting when switched off.

More than likely there was a loss of info (or info was corrupted) when you switched off 'mid shutdown', this could be repaired by the link David gave, if not then (as drastic as this sounds) you'd be better with a fresh install and go from scratch (I used to reinstall rather than faff around for days on end trying to trace an issue, saves time and effort)

If you have a decent repair centre then it might pay to have a system check, (hdd, ram, battery, board, cards etc)

Wish I was closer mate, I'd have done it for coffee and conversation.

[Guest]

Trying to remember XP.... Could you have inadvertently (during shut down/switch off) changed User Account ID?

Check your "Control Panel" then "User Accounts" to see if Wonderful Windows has switched you to a different user.

[Guest]

If Laurie hasn't set up any other account with password etc then the "should" only be one user account.

I'm not saying that "wonderful windows" (I like that :-) ) hasn't invented one though :-) :-)

[Gern]

If Laurie hasn't set up any other account with password etc then the "should" only be one user account.I'm not saying that "wonderful windows" (I like that ) hasn't invented one though

You know what they say folks: "If it ain't broke, it's only 'cos Microsoft hasn't had enough time"

Gern

PS One of the nicest forms of revenge against Microsoft I saw was a new computer keyboard made specially for Bill Gates. It only had three keys:

Ctrl + Alt + Del

[Gern]

Just a thought Laurie. Having got yourself all gender confused a couple of days ago, you sure Pauline isn't trying to erase your identity as well?

Gern

[Guest]

Well nearly sorted & have to thank all you Gentlemen (term used with out discretion ).

Think the battery is OK thanks for that Ole.

Thanks for the link Dave. Went all thro that & it is very well presented & easy to follow. But I think that the profile was so corrupt that it could not copy it to the new log in formed.

Need that Coffee & a chat Colin.

But using the new log in user I have managed to save all the personal data I have re put in. Real bind but there you go.

Any help with retrieving my emails, must be in a file somwhere, would be appreciated.

No Dave Pauline has only one thought about computers that I sit in front of them to much. He he it will carry on. She has tried them even got her an Ipad but she still writes long handed & uses the phone do you believe that. Thing is Pauline can speak faster on a phone than a computer. QED.

Laurie

[stona]

Make sure you can see hidden files and folders and then follow this route, clicking as you go.

MY COMPUTER

LOCAL DISK C

DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS

OWNER

LOCAL SETTINGS

APPLICATION DATA

IDENTITIES

GIBBERISH FOLDER (technically a 'unique alphanumeric string')

MICROSOFT

OUTLOOK EXPRESS

DBX FILES

If the .dbx files are b*ggered, you might be in trouble.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest]

Laurie

No worries fella, I'm glad the link was of some help to you.

[Guest]

That's assuming Laurie uses outlook express and not Microsoft Outlook or an online email server or something like incredimail which would store them in their respective software folders.

[Guest]

Thanks Steve & Colin.

Actually use Outlook Express. Found the files thanks Steve.

Just a little question. What do I do with the little devils to view them. Apologies for the ignorance not quite total but getting there.

Laurie