User Profile Failed At Logon

I also have this problem.

I am the only user of a standalone PC running Vista Home Premium.
There is only one account set up (mine). I am Administrator. I have turned
off Guest Account long ago.
I attempted to set up a Standard account for my wife so that she can
download and view her digital photos without fear of her changing any other
settings. I used Control Panel / User Accounts / Manage Other Accounts / Add
Account
Although the account appears to be set up OK at this point, when I log off
as myself and try to logon as my wife, or reboot and attempt to sign in as my
wife, I get the message "User Profile Service Failed at Logon" - "Logon
Denied".
I can still log on OK as myself - Administator.

I have deleted my wife's account and added it again a couple of times, still
no good. I have turned Guest account on & off, this doesn't affect it either.

I have turned User Account Control On & Off; again still no luck.

I really do need your helpful ideas please.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Ian,

I'm not sure exactly how to fix your problem. But here are some things to
check ... might fix it, or at least give you some ideas ...

The user profile is stored in some files under C:\Users\<username>. These
files need to be present in order for the User Profile Service to make the
logon; if they are missing, you will see the "failed the logon" error
message. Log in as Admininistrator and go to a Command prompt. Change
directory to your wife's home directory; eg:

C:\Users\Ian>cd \Users\Wife <enter>
C:\Users\Wife

Now ro a "dir /a" command to see the hidden files in the directory. The most
important Profile file is called NTUSER.DAT.

Next, make sure the Profile entry in the Registry is pointing towards this
directory.
- run Regedit
- navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
\Software
\Windows NT
\CurrentVersion
ProfileList
There are Profile entries for each user account, identified by the SID
("Security Identifier"), a long number beginning S-1-5-nn-xxxxx- etc. For
interactive (human) users, nn will be 21, ie, S-1-5-21-xxx etc.

The built-in Administrator account's SID ends in -500. Other accounts will
end in random four digit numbers. There will probably be 2 or 3 Profiles
listed - one for your own account, one for your wife, and the old account
your wife used to have. See if you can work out which Profile belongs to
your wife.

Now examine the ProfileImagePath value, under your wife's Profile key. This
should be pointing towards her Home directory, where the NTUSER.DAT file
lives; eg C:\Users\Wife. If it is set to some other location, such as a
temporary directory or strange path, change it back to the default
C:\Users\Wife value. Then exit Regedit, logoff, and try to logon as your
wife.

You might also want to go to Computer, Properties, Advanced System Settings,
User Profiles, and delete any "(unknown)" user profiles, in case there is
left-over crud from unsuccessful attempts to create a user.

Hope this helps a bit; let us know how you get on.

--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au