For the end user, increased productivity can be dependent on the familiarity of their working environment, which is encompassed in the Windows XP user profile.

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A user profile on a Microsoft Windows XP system contains all the files and settings needed to configure your work environment. If the user profile becomes damaged, Windows XP will display one of two error messages when you log on to the system:

OR:

The system has recovered from a serious error.

The operating system will then automatically create a new user profile and log you in to this new profile. When this occurs, you’ll immediately discover that all your personalized settings — such as color scheme, wallpaper, and icons — are gone. Even more disturbing is that the My Documents folder doesn’t show any of your documents. You’ll also discover that Outlook Express and Internet Explorer will be void of any of your personal settings and data.

When this happens, it’s very easy to quickly go into panic mode and think that you’ve lost everything. However, in most cases, all you’ve actually lost is the user profile and most, if not all, of your data is safe and sound.

This blog post is also available in PDF format as a TechRepublic download.

Must be an administrator

Keep in mind that in order to perform the recovery operations discussed in this article, you must be working from an account with Computer Administrator privileges. If the temporary account that Windows XP creates for you when your original becomes damaged has Computer Administrator privileges, you can use it as a staging area for the recovery operation. If it’s not, you’ll need to log off, then log on to the default Administrator account or to another account that has Computer Administrator privileges. I’ll refer to this as the “working account” throughout this article.

Backing up your data

The first thing that you’ll want to do is make sure that the data in your original account is safe and then back it up. To begin the backup operation, launch Windows Explorer and navigate to the C:\Documents and Settings folder. Then, locate and cialis cheapest open your original account folder. At this point, you should see all the files and folders in your original user profile, as shown in Figure A.

Figure A

You can open your original account folder and back up all the files and folders containing crucial data.

You’ll then want to copy your crucial data files to another location. For example, you’ll definitely want to copy the contents of your My Documents folder, which will appear as UserName’sDocuments. (On my example system, it’s called Greg Shultz’s Documents.) You may also want to copy the contents of the Favorites folder. If you’re using Outlook Express, you can find the files that make up your e-mail messages stored in the Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{#####}\Microsoft\Outlook Express folder. You’ll find your Address Book file in the Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book folder. If you’re using Outlook 2000/XP, you’ll find the PST file in the Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook folder.

Once you’ve backed up your crucial data files, you can proceed with the recovery operation knowing that your data is indeed safe and sound.

Using System Restore

The first thing to try when attempting to recover a damaged user profile is a System Restore operation. As you know, the System Restore utility is designed to allow you to return your computer to the state it was at an earlier time period. In this case, the goal is to return your system to the state it was in before the user profile was damaged.

Before you attempt this operation, there are two things you need to be aware of. First, if there are multiple user accounts on the system, performing a System Restore operation will return all user profiles to the state they were in at that earlier time. Second, depending on the severity of the damage to the user profile, performing a System Restore operation may not be able to rectify the problem.

You’ll find the System Restore utility on the All Programs | Accessories | System Tools menu. Once you launch System Restore, you’ll see the Welcome To System Restore page and can simply click Next. On the Select A Restore Point page, select the last restore point created before the damage to the user profile became apparent, then click Next. When you’re prompted to confirm the operation, click Next, and the restore operation will begin.

Once System Restore finishes, it will restart the system. When it does, you can attempt to log on using your original user account. If System Restore was able to successfully recover the user profile, everything should be the way it was.

If you’re still unable to log on to your original account, it’s time to escalate your user profile recovery operation to the next level. However, you may first want to undo the System Restore operation.

To undo the System Restore operation, log on to the working account and launch System Restore. When you see the Welcome To System Restore page, you’ll discover a new option titled Undo My Last Restoration. Just select that option, click Next, and follow the onscreen instructions.

Copying your user profile

In this user profile recovery technique, you’ll attempt to revive the user profile by creating a new account and, subsequently, a new user profile. You’ll then copy your old user profile in its entirety to the new account. While this may sound like an operation that will simply replicate the problem over to the new account, it does indeed revive the user profile on occasion. Again, keep in mind that the success of this attempt depends on the severity of the damage to the user profile. However, since it’s a relatively painless operation, it’s worth a shot.

To begin, access the Control Panel and launch the User Accounts tool. Next, select the Create A New Account link. Then, give the account a name and click Next. When prompted to pick an account type, make sure the Computer Administrator option button is selected, and then click the Create Account button.

Once you create the new account, close the User Accounts tool. Then, click Start | Log Off. When you see the Log Off Windows dialog box, click the Log Off button. When either the Welcome Screen or the Log On To Windows dialog box opens, select or type the name you used for the new account. As soon as you do, Windows XP will create a user profile for the new account.

When the user profile creation procedure is complete and the system starts up, immediately click Log Off. Then, log back on to the working account.

Now, open the Start menu, right-click My Computer, and select Properties. When you see the System Properties dialog box, select the Advanced tab. Then, locate and click the Settings button in the User Profiles section. You’ll now see a User Profiles dialog box that looks like the one shown in Figure B.

Figure B

You’ll use the User Profiles tool to copy your old user profile to the new account.

In this example, I’ll be copying the user profile from the Greg Shultz account to the Greg Shultz2 account. I’ll begin by selecting the Greg Shultz user profile and clicking the Copy To button. When the Copy To dialog box appears, click the Browse button and then use the resulting Browse For Folder dialog box to locate the Documents and Settings folder and select the new account.

At this point, the Copy To dialog box will look like the one shown in Figure C. To continue, just click OK. You’ll then see a confirmation dialog box that informs you that the original files will be deleted and prompts you to confirm the copy operation. Just click Yes.

Figure C

At this point, you’ll see the path to your new account in the Copy To dialog box.

Once the copy operation finishes, close the User Profiles dialog box and the System Properties dialog box, then log off. At this point, you can attempt to log on to the new account. If this technique was able to successfully recover the user profile, everything should be the way it was.

If you’re still unable to log on to your account, it’s time to move to the next level. However, you’ll first need to completely remove the new user account and user profile. To do so, log on to the working account, access the User Profiles dialog box again, select the profile, and click the Delete button. Then, access the User Accounts tool and delete the new account and its files.

Moving to a new user profile

In this user profile recovery technique, you’ll move to a new user profile by creating a new account and, subsequently, a new user profile. You’ll then copy your data files and other portions of the user profile from your original to the new one. Keep in mind that when you move to a new user profile in this manner, you will lose all your personalized settings, such as color scheme, wallpaper, and icons.

You’ll follow the instructions I presented earlier for creating a new account and a new user profile. In short, you’ll access the User Accounts tool to create a new account. Then, log on to the new account to create a default new user profile. Finally, log off and then log back on to the working account.

To begin this operation, launch Windows Explorer and navigate to the C:\Documents and Settings folder. Then, locate and open your original account folder. At this point, you should see all the files and folders in your original user profile, as shown earlier in Figure A.

Copy the contents of the folders containing the data that you want to move to your new user profile. In the case of my example system, I’d begin by copying the contents of the C:\Documents and Settings\Greg Shultz\Greg Shultz’s Documents folder to the C:\Documents and Settings\Greg Shultz2\Greg Shultz2’s folder.

In addition, you’ll want to copy the contents of the Favorites, Outlook Express, and Address Book folders if you’re using that e-mail program, or the Outlook folder. You may also want to copy the contents of Cookies, Templates, and any other folders that contain critical data files.

Be careful not to copy any files that are specifically related to the operating system, as any one of those files could be the culprit in the case of the corrupted user profile. For example, you definitely won’t want to copy Ntuser.dat, Ntuser.pol, or Ntuser.ini from your old user profile to your new one.

When you’re finished copying files, log out of the working profile, and then log on to your new user profile. When you do, you should be able to access all your data files and most of your applications, just as you did with your old profile. However, keep in mind that you may have to reinstall or at least reconfigure some of your applications. And, of course, you’ll need to recreate all your personalized settings.

Cleaning out your old profile

Once you’ve totally moved into your new user profile, you’ll want to permanently delete your old, corrupted user profile. While you may be tempted to do so from within Windows Explorer, you shouldn’t because it won’t completely remove all the settings associated with your old user profile.

To do it the right way, access the User Profiles tool from the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box. Once you do, select the old user profile from the list and click the Delete button.

The automatic user profile backup technique

So you won’t ever have to go through all these troubleshooting steps should the user profile ever get corrupted again, you can trick Windows XP into administering the local user profile as if it were a roaming user profile. When you do so, Windows XP will back up your user profile each time you log off.

To use this trick, you have to log off your new account and log on to the working account. Then, access the User Profiles tool from the Advanced tab of the System Properties dialog box, select your user profile, click the Copy To button, and type the name of a folder on another drive in the Copy Profile To text box.

Once you complete that part of the operation, launch the Computer Management console, which you can do by pressing [Windows]-R and typing compmgmt.msc in the Open text box. Then, drill down to System Tools\Local Users and Groups\Users folder. Next, double-click on your account name and select the Profile tab. Then, type the path to the backup in the Profile Path text box, as shown in Figure D.

Figure D

You can configure Windows XP to automatically back up the local user profile each time you log off.

September 21st, 2008

Posted by Ed Bott

In the Talkback section to another post, a reader asks a question about when Microsoft plans to drop support for Windows Vista. I hear variations on this one all the time, so I figured it’s worth covering here:

If MS is pushing up Win 7, what is going to happen to all the Vista users? Are they going to get screwed by a short term OS? It seems that MS is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one. If Vista becomes a speed bump, then the Vista users will be angry. If they don’t then all the people who hate Vista will be angry. While in total numbers Vista users are small in number now it still is a large number of people.

I might quibble with the characterization that the total number of Vista users is small. Even if you discount Microsoft’s numbers by 50%, you still have 100 million people using Vista today. That’s a huge number by almost any standard and is only small when you compare it to the billion or so Windows machines in existence. So, are those millions and millions of customers out in the cold when buy tadalafil cialis Windows 7 comes out?

In a word, no. Microsoft has a well-documented support lifecycle for its software products. It’s part of the agreement that the company makes with everyone who installs Windows, especially business customers who want some assurance that they’ll be able to get updates and support for operating systems and applications even if they choose not to upgrade to the latest and greatest. Here are the high points and how they relate to Windows Vista.

The lifecycle includes two main phases:

• The Mainstream Support phase includes security updates, non-security hotfixes, no-charge incident support, paid support, warranty claims, design changes and feature requests, and access to online resources such as the Knowledge Base and Microsoft Help and Support.
• In the Extended Support phase, Microsoft continues to provide security updates, paid support, and online information. Customers who want hotfix support can purchase an extended agreement within 90 days of the end of the Mainstream Support phase.

After the Extended Support phase ends, you can continue to use online self-help resources, but all other support has to be provided through third parties or through custom support agreements such as those enjoyed by some large corporate customers.

So how do these support options map for you? That depends on whether you’re using a business or consumer product.

• For Business and Developer products (which includes Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise editions of Vista), the Mainstream Support phase runs for a minimum of five years or two years after the release of the next edition of the product, whichever is later. Assuming that Windows 7 ships in 2009 or 2010, that means Vista will enjoy mainstream support until at least November 30, 2011. The Extended Support phase runs for an additional five years, so you can count on security updates for Vista until at least November 30, 2016.
• For Consumer products (which includes Vista Home Basic and Home Premium), Microsoft provides Mainstream Support only. Because the launch of the consumer version of Vista was two months later than the business launch, the support lifecycle provides for full support until at least January 30, 2012, or two years after the release of Windows 7, whichever is later.

Good news for consumers is that security updates apply to all Windows versions, so any Vista security updates made available via Windows Update should be delivered to consumers and businesses alike, even during the Extended Support phase. So your copy of Vista Home Premium will continue to receive security updates for at least eight more years.

And what about XP? When Vista came out, conspiracy theorists were quick to predict that Microsoft would abandon it and force customers to switch to Vista. I debunked that notion shortly before Vista shipped. A few months later, in January 2007, Microsoft officially expanded its support terms for XP, covering home editions under the Extended Support phase (see “XP gets a new lease on life”  for details). So, if you use any XP edition, you’re covered through April 2014.

By that time, of course, Windows 8 will probably have been released, which means that Microsoft will be actively supporting four separate desktop editions of Windows.

October 3rd, 2008

Posted by Mary Jo Foley

Microsoft is sending some very confusing signals about Windows Vista — the latest of which it issued via a statement on October 3.

The Register reported on October 2 that Microsoft was going to extend again the date until which PC makers would be allowed to continue to offer Windows users “downgrade rights,” enabling them to switch from Vista to XP on new machines. The Reg said Microsoft had moved the downgrade cut-off date from January 31, 2009 to July 31, 2009.

I asked Microsoft about the Reg’s report and got this statement, via a company spokesperson:

 ”As more customers make the move to Windows Vista, we want to make sure that they are making that transition with confidence and that it is as smooth as possible. Providing downgrade media for a few more months is part of that commitment, as is the Windows Vista Small Business Assurance program (available in the U.S. only), which provides 1-on-1, customized support for our small business customers.”

buy real cialis online align=”justify”>In other words, the Reg’s story was correct.

The spokesperson sent further clarification:

“What’s changing is Microsoft is giving six more months where it will provide downgrade media for XP Professional for OEMs and system builders to provide to their customers who purchase Windows Vista Ultimate and Business editions – (which the company figures will be) largely going to be small businesses since that’s the audience that would want/use XP Pro. So it’s the same old downgrade right thing that was in the EULA (End User License Agreement) before; it’s just Microsoft is providing the media to partners a few months more.”

“The same caveat  with providing the downgrade media as before applies, which is OEMs and system builders don’t have to do so if they don’t want – it’s their business decision to make.”

Microsoft has extended XP’s end-of-life date before. In Apri 2008 l, Microsoft officials said the company was not going to extend again the date on which it required OEMs to stop preloading XP on new machines. That date was June 30, 2008. Microsoft did say that system builders, a k a white box vendors, would be allowed to continue to preload XP on new systems until January 31, 2009. OEMs and system builders both were OK’d to continue preloading XP on new ultra-low-cost systems through 2010, as many of those systems were and are incapable of running Vista.

Bottom line: Even though Microsoft is maintaining publicly that Vista is finally ready for prime time, it is allowing PC makers to continue to offer customers XP. So what’s a user to believe? Is Microsoft really standing behind Vista? And if it’s not — but instead is doing what customers really want (while simply giving lip-service to Vista’s readiness — is that still a positive?

October 6th, 2008

Posted by Jason Hiner

On Friday, Microsoft gave computer makers a six-month extension for offering Windows XP on newly-shipped PCs. While this doesn’t impact enterprise IT — because volume licensing agreements will allow IT to keep installing Windows XP for many years to come — the move is another symbolic nail in Vista’s coffin.

The public reputation of Windows Vista is in shambles, as Microsoft itself tacitly acknowledged in its Mojave ad campaign.

IT departments are largely ignoring Vista. In June (18 months after Vista’s launch), Forrester Research reported that just 8.8% of enterprise PCs worldwide were running Vista. Meanwhile, Microsoft appears to have put Windows 7 on an accelerated schedule that could see it released in 2010. That will provide IT departments with all the justification they need to simply skip Vista and wait to eventually standardize on Windows 7 as the next OS for business.

So how did Vista get left holding the bag? Let’s look at the five most important reasons why Vista failed.

5. Apple successfully demonized Vista

Apple’s clever I’m a Mac ads have successfully driven home the perception that Windows Vista is buggy, boring, and difficult to use. After taking two years of merciless pummeling from Apple, Microsoft recently responded with it’s I’m a PC campaign in order to defend the honor of Windows. This will likely restore some mojo to the PC and Windows brands overall, but it’s too late to save Vista’s perception as a dud.

4. Windows XP is too entrenched

In 2001, when Windows XP was released, there were about 600 million computers in use worldwide. Over 80% of them were running Windows but it was split between two code bases: Windows 95/98 (65%) and Windows NT/2000 (26%), according to IDC. One of the big goals of Windows XP was to unite the Windows 9x and Windows NT code bases, and it eventually accomplished that.

In 2008, there are now over 1.1 billion PCs in use worldwide and over 70% of them are running Windows XP. That means almost 800 million computers are running XP, which makes it the most widely installed operating system of all time. That’s a lot of inertia to overcome, especially for IT departments that have consolidated their deployments and applications around Windows XP.

And, believe it or not, Windows XP could actually increase its market share over the next couple years. How? Low-cost netbooks and nettops are going to be flooding the market. While these inexpensive machines are powerful enough to provide a solid Internet experience for most users, they don’t have enough resources to run Windows Vista, so they all run either Windows XP or Linux. Intel expects this market to explode in the years ahead. (For more on netbooks and nettops, see this fact sheet and this presentation — both are PDFs from Intel.)

3. Vista is too slow

For years Microsoft has been criticized by developers and IT professionals for “software bloat” — adding so many changes and features to its programs that the code gets huge and unwieldy. However, this never seemed to have enough of an effect to impact software sales. With Windows Vista, software bloat appears to have finally caught up with Microsoft.

Vista has over 50 million lines of code. XP had 35 million when it was released, and since then it has grown to about 40 million.  This software bloat has had the effect of slowing down Windows Vista, especially when it’s running on anything but the latest and fastest hardware. Even then, the latest version of Windows XP soundly outperforms the latest version of Microsoft Vista. No one wants to use a new computer that is slower than their old one.

2. There wasn’t supposed to be a Vista

It’s easy to forget that when Microsoft launched Windows XP it was actually trying to change its OS business model to move away from shrink-wrapped software and convert customers to software subscribers. That’s why it abandoned the naming convention of Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows 2000, and instead chose Windows XP.

The XP stood for “experience” and was part of Microsoft’s .NET Web services strategy at the time. The master plan was to get users and businesses to pay a yearly subscription fee for the Windows experience — XP would essentially be the on-going product name but would include all software upgrades and updates, as long as you paid for your subscription. Of course, it would disable Windows on your PC if you didn’t pay. That’s why product activation was coupled with Windows XP.

Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP simultaneously in 2001 and both included product activation and the plan to eventually migrate to subscription products. However, by the end of 2001 Microsoft had already abandoned the subscription concept with Office, and quickly returned to the shrink-wrapped business model and the old product development model with both products.

The idea of doing incremental releases and upgrades of its software — rather than a major shrink-wrapped release every 3-5 years — was a good concept. Microsoft just couldn’t figure out how to make the business model work, but instead of figuring out how to get it right, it took the easy route and went back to an old model that was simply not very well suited to the economic and technical realities of today’s IT world.

1. It broke too much stuff

One of the big reasons that Windows XP caught on was because it had the hardware, software, and driver compatibility of the Windows 9x line plus the stability and industrial strength of the Windows NT line. The compatibility issue was huge. Having a single, highly-compatible Windows platform simplified the computing experience for users, IT departments, and software and hardware vendors.

Microsoft either forgot or disregarded that fact when it released Windows Vista, because, despite a long beta period, a lot of existing software and hardware were not compatible with Vista when it was released in January 2007. Since many important programs and peripherals were unusable in Vista, that made it impossible for a lot of IT departments to adopt it. Many of the incompatibilities were the result of tighter security.

After Windows was targeted by a nasty string of viruses, worms, and malware in the early 2000s, Microsoft embarked on the Trustworthy Computing initiative to make its products more secure. One of the results was Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), which won over IT and paved the way for XP to become the world’s mostly widely deployed OS.

The other big piece of Trustworthy Computing was the even-further-locked-down version of Windows that Microsoft released in Vista. This was definitely the most secure OS that Microsoft had ever released but the price was user-hostile features such as UAC, a far more complicated set of security prompts that accompanied many basic tasks, and a host of software incompatibility issues. In other words, Vista broke a lot of the things that users were used to doing in XP.

Bottom line

There are some who argue that Vista is actually more widely adopted than XP was at this stage after its release, and that it’s highly likely buy cialis usa that Vista will eventually replace XP in the enterprise. I don’t agree. With XP, there were clear motivations to migrate: bring Windows 9x machines to a more stable and secure OS and bring Windows NT/2000 machines to an OS with much better hardware and software compatibility. And, you also had the advantage of consolidating all of those machines on a single OS in order to simplify support.

With Vista, there are simply no major incentives for IT to use it over XP. Security isn’t even that big of an issue because XP SP2 (and above) are solid and most IT departments have it locked down quite well. As I wrote in the article Prediction: Microsoft will leapfrog Vista, release Windows 7 early, and change its OS business, Microsoft needs to abandon the strategy of releasing a new OS every 3-5 years and simply stick with a single version of Windows and release updates, patches, and new features on a regular basis. Most IT departments are essentially already on a subscription model with Microsoft so the business strategy is already in place for them.

As far as the subscription model goes for small businesses and consumers, instead of disabling Windows on a user’s PC if they don’t renew their subscription, just don’t allow that machine to get any more updates if they don’t renew. Microsoft could also work with OEMs to sell something like a three-year subscription to Windows with every a new PC. Then users would have the choice of renewing on their own after that.

By Stuart J. Johnston

As cool as this feature may appear, it's unlikely to be reason enough for the millions of XP users in the world to postpone their next system upgrade for more than a year. When you're ready for a 64-bit desktop PC, it's ready for you.