Vista Update Help:"The User Profile Service service failed the log

I attempted to update my XP Media Center version to Vista Home Premium. The
update process was slow, but seemed to be going well. It got towards the end
(I thought) and asked me to confirm my clock but when it went to logon I
received the following messages, "The User Profile Service service failed the
logon. User profile cannot be loaded."

I have not been able to logon to my computer for a week now (am writing this
from work). I contacted Microsoft Support and we spoke on the phone for
30-45 minutes but to no avail. They gave me a case number. However, there
was miscommunication between the tech person and myself and now it's up to me
to call Microsoft back at my convenience.

Before I make that call, I am hoping someone out there can help me or give
me some ideas to try when I get home tonight. I would love to be able to fix
this without starting over.

I sincerely hope you have been able to logon to your computer before now, but
just in case:

Log on with another administrator profile.
Execute regedit
Goto Local Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Profile List
Go through the profiles to find yours. You can use the ProfileImagePath to
identify your profile
The key to your profile may have a ".bak" appended to it. There will be
another identical key except for the bak. Rename this key and rename yours
removing the ".bak"
Change the State property to 0.

Log off and retry logging on with your profile. It should now work.

This appears to be an issue with the profile entering into a backup state,
but for the life of me I can't find any documentation on this or determine
what causes it to happen. Hopefully Microsoft will come up with a fix, as
this would be disastrous in a corporate environment.

I have the same issue. I tried logging on with the admin but it tells me it
could not load up so it tells me its loading at default. I looked under the
regedit like you say but it doesnt show me any profiles it just shows current
version. I really need help with this one as I have some important paperwork.

when I try to logon to my admin account I get "the user
profile service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded"

This is my only admin account (have other user acccounts that are fine) -
hence can't long on as admin at all.

Any fixes? Seems to happen to a number of people based on general web
searches

I do not have that reg key.

I guess this is why everyone waits a year or so before rolling out new OS's
as it seems like when searching on the net there are alot of people
experiencing this but so far no fixes.

My admin account profile failed to logged in as well, I'd been using my sister's account for like a month now. And it's really annoying how we can't download anything and I can see my own documents that i save on my account...Can anyone help me with the step on how to be able to log in my account. I'll be waiting for a reply.

i havnt been able to use my computer for 2 days now, i only have one profile on my computer, and so it is impossible to do anything with it at all. i dont know much about computers, and i really need ur help - i need the computer for school

I must thank Microsoft for their incompetence in dealing with this issue. Microsoft being in bed with the NSA wasn't enough motivation to cause me to switch to Linux.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

I had the error: user profile cannot be loaded

I called microsoft and we discovered that I had loaded my Palm phone options wrong the day before. In the loading of the software there was a question asking about which device too precidence over the other. I selected the phone. The problem came when I then restarted my PC and the phone was not connected.

the fix was to go go back in time 2 days. Microsoft walked me through it. total fix time took about an hour, but no problems since.

You can find the profiles list on:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\
I had the same message error but now, it solve. big thanks to John.

turn on your computer then hold press F8 You will see on the screen " Repair Your Computer" then Enter. Don't choose Administrator if you don't know the password use your own administrator user name and your password,. then press Enter.

On the screen

You'll see on the first Category "Startup Repair" and the second one "System Restore"

click on Startup Repair then when Your done doing it restart your computer. if doesn't work try the second one System Restore then click on it. again when your done Restart your computer.

If didn't work out

Followed John Bailey's instructions, found and fixed the backup file. Not getting the user profile error any more but am now getting an error that says Group Policy Client service failed logon. Any ideas?

I had a slightly different twist to this exact error. Old users could log on, but new users could not create profiles.
Under C:\users is a hidden file called "Default". I renamed it default_bak. Then I copied over the Default file from a working machine. Problem solved. Hope this can help someone out.

I'm having the same problem on a lap top and am a little afraid to mess with the registry. Is there any other way to fix this? I can't find John Bailey's "profile lists" either... maybe I'm too dumb? lol Someone help!

I only have one profile (the one I can't enter with the error message "the user profile service failed the logon" and "user profile cannot be loaded."

Any more non-invasive or non-techi suggestions?? Thanks!

I too could not find any profile listed with a 'bak' after the SID. What I did discover however is that under the C:\Users there were 2 folders listed .. one with the name 'Default' and another with 'Default.ORIG'. I simply deleted the 'Default' and renamed the 'Default.ORIG' back to 'Default'. It worked for me !

I had the same message, but no backup profiles in the registry. Changing any settings here also had no effect, and reverted when I rebooted and tried logging in again. The problem occurred after a microsoft update.

After logging in in safe mode and turning off User Account Management in Control Panel/User Accounts/Turn User Account Control on or off, the installation (I think it was MSN Messenger) completed and all was back to normal.

i am having the same problem of not being able to rename the reg key and the same error message as 04051998. lucky i have annother account to use but all my music photos etc are on the user profile that wont load! I HATE VISTA i hope someone could write a solution to this problem

Very good advice and (I think?) I understand what has happened with my (administrator) signon somehow being made “backup” status. Can do the “REGEDIT” thing and find the necessary folders, but my PC won’t let me change the endings on the two relevant files… I know need to change the files without and with the ".bak" ending, but when I try to change first one, get PC error message saying “the registry editor can not rename “s.1010100filename”…. error while renaming key". I can’t do a System Restore far back enough (seen other threads on issues with VISTA saving too much info so only goes back about a week) and I can’t set up another administrator user…. HELP PLEASE!! how can I either correct my existing admin signon OR create another one?

Thank you this worked for me too. I was completely perplexed by the error message and had no idea how to fix it so I googled "User Profile Cannot be Loaded" and found this forum.

I followed John Bailey's instructions as modified by rabbaa and SergioQ and it worked.

I was able to logon to my profile by pressing Shift F8 while my computer was booting up and then logging on in SafeMode (with command prompt).

I found the link rabbaa provided and then followed John's instructions.

It worked and I'm a complete novice on all things tech.

This is probably a silly question, but you say to follow the link to the profiles, but where can i type that link that it will take me to the right place? Im still struggling with Vista and all things techy. really need to solve this problem now!

I've tried all the system restore options so think this is the last solution that i've not tried yet.

I was able to correct it with John's original post and rabbaa's corrected path. I hope no one minds that I combined everything into this reply for ease of access to anyone else who needs it. I also had to go in through safe mode to correct this. I take no credit for this fix.

Log on with another administrator profile.
Execute regedit
Goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\
Go through the profiles to find yours. You can use the ProfileImagePath to
identify your profile
The key to your profile may have a ".bak" appended to it. There will be
another identical key except for the bak. Rename this key and rename yours
removing the ".bak"
Change the State property to 0.

Log off and retry logging on with your profile. It should now work.

can someone among you gurus tell me how to resolve this problem without doing a complete system restore.
My situation is like this:

We have several Windows Vista Machines on our network.The version of vista is Windows Vista Business.They do not have service packs installed on them except for one but even this one with service pack 2 is giving me the same problem.
I have read quite alot of these posts all over the net and the common solution to this problem is checking the profile to see if it has a bak extension.
My situation is abit different, when i create a new user in active directory on our server,this user can log onto other Windows xp pro machines without any problem but will fail to log on the Vista machine which was allocated to them.I currently have two users who have failed to log on these machines becuase of this problem.They have never logged onto these pcs and am sure their profiles do no exist on these machines for me to start looking for the .bak extension in the registry.
Can someone please help me resolve this problem,the clock is ticking on me.

I got round this problem by:-
Log on in Safe Mode with Networking.
Execute regedit
Goto Local Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Profile List
Go through the profiles to find yours. You can use the ProfileImagePath to
identify your profile
The key to your profile may have a ".bak" appended to it. There will be
another identical key except for the bak. Rename this key and rename yours
removing the ".bak"
Change the State property to 0.

Log off and retry logging on with your profile. It should now work.

You know what? I'm bad at this computer stuff, & when I saw this, I was happy someone clearly wrote out instructions to fix my problem. I fixed it, but none of you mentioned that you lose ALL YOU SAVED FILES! MAYBE you should have said something about that? I can't see any of my pictures or important documents! WHERE are they? Did you have yours? Or did you use restoration software.

To resolve this problem yourself, follow these steps:

• Delete the profile by using the Computer Properties dialog box. To do this, follow these steps:
  
  • Click Start, right-click Computer, and then click Properties.
  • Click Change settings.
  • In the System Properties dialog box, click the Advanced tab.
  • Under User Profiles, click Settings.
  • In the User Profiles dialog box, select the profile that you want to delete, click Delete, and then click OK.
• Click StartCollapse this imageExpand this image, type regedit in the Start search box, and then press ENTER.
• Locate and then expand the following registry subkey:
  
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
• Right-click the SID that you want to remove, and then click Delete.
• Log on to the computer and create a new profile.