How to Fix Corrupt Windows User Profile

Trying to login into your Windows user account but getting errors like user profile cannot be loaded? If yes, then this means that your user profile is corrupted. As a result, you won’t be able to log in to your computer and access your files. So the question is, how to fix a corrupt Windows user profile? In this article, I will share a few helpful methods that will help you restore your corrupt Windows user account.

Reasons Behind Corrupt User Profile In Windows

There are a few reasons why Windows profile gets corrupted. Some of the common reasons are:

• Failed Windows updated.
• Corrupted profile registry keys.
• Compromised System or user files.
• Corrupted user account active directory.
• Damaged hard drive.
• Failed automatic updates.

Also, as per Microsoft, your user profile can get corrupted if the antivirus program is busy scanning your PC while trying to log in to your user account.

However, the good part is that fixing the issue is not as complicated as it might be. So go ahead and follow the below fixes.

How to Fix Corrupt Windows User Profile?

To restore your corrupted Windows user profile, there are a few things that you can do. Such as:

1. Using Registry Editor
2. Create A New User Account & Restore

Now let me talk about all of these methods individually over here:

1] Using Registry Editor

• First, login to another user account with Admin privileges. Or you can boot your computer in safe mode.
• Right-click on the Start button and select Run.
• Type down Regedit and press enter to launch Registry Editor.
• Navigate to the following path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
• Now open the ProfileList folder, and you will see folders starting with S-1-5. Each of these folders is associated with a user profile on your computer.

• Next, you have to identify the correct folder that belongs to the corrupted user profile. To do so, you can click on each S-1-5 Entry and take a look at the “Data” Column for ProfileImagePath Entry. Over there, you should see the Username in the data column.

• Once you have found the correct folder, double-click on the State Feild in the right pane to launch the Edit DWORD Window.

• On the DWORD Window, change the value data from 1 to 0 and click on the OK button.
  You need to do the same with RefCount Entry and change the value from 1 to 0. In case if you cannot find the Entry, right-click on the blank space > New > DWORD (32 bit) and type RefCount. Then set its value.
• Close the Registry Editor and reboot your computer.
• Finally, check if it did fix the issue for you. If it didn’t, then move to the below fixes.

2] Create A New User Account & Restore

You can also create a new user account and transfer files from the old user account to the new one.

For this, you will need to have an alternate user profile with administrator privileges. If you have it, sign in to the account and follow all the onscreen steps to create a new user account.

If you don’t have another admin account, nothing to worry about. As Microsoft offers you a hidden admin account and you can access it by following the below steps:

• Start your computer in Safe mode.
• Right-click on the Start menu and select Command Prompt (Admin).
• On the command prompt, type down net user administrator /active:yes and press the enter key.
• After running the command, you should see a message saying that the command was completed successfully.

Now restart your computer, and you will log in to the hidden Admin account. Then use the account to create a new user profile.

Transfer Files From Old to New User Account

Once you have your new user account ready, the next step is to transfer your files from the old account to the new one. For this, follow the below steps:

• Go to the user Folder located at C:/Users.
• Over here, you will find sub-folders for every User Account on your computer, including the corrupted user profile.
• Open the corrupted user profile and copy Desktop, Contacts, Downloads, and Other Files that you want to move to the new user account. But make sure not to copy the entire user profile as you will copy hidden system files.
• Next, open your New user account folder located at C:/Users and Paste the files and folders you have copied.

That’s it. Finally, you can log in to your new user account, and you will see all the files from your corrupted user account. However, you will still need to go through personalization settings.

What causes a user profile to become corrupt?

According to Microsoft, your user profile can get corrupted if the antivirus program is busy scanning your PC while trying to log in to your user account.

So that was all for how to fix a corrupt Windows user profile. I hope the above methods did help you to resolve the issue. In case if you are stuck at anything, let me know through the comments.