Windows Profile

[HeyNewgirl]

I have a weird situation. Where I work we have approx 2500 pc's on a network. We have run into this situation 3 times. What happens is that a user will log into the pc and the pc will not recognize the user and create a new profile. The pc does not recognize the fact that the userid has been used before therefore does not create a backup...userid.bak. Once this happens the user has lost all of his data because the id has been written over. I am sure the data is not really gone but I have not found a program that would enable me to read that data. Has anyone heard of this happening.

 

[wolluf]

Can you explain a bit more please. Take it this is a domain environment? And you are not using roaming profiles? (so user's generally use same machine & their profile lives there? What i don't understand is the overwriting bit. Normally, if 2k creates a new profile for an existing user id, it will add a suffix to the profile name (eg, where local & domain user ids are the same, you can have a profile called user and another called user.machinename or user.domainname - depending whether local or domain profile created first. Can also have .001, .002 etc suffix). But you seem to be saying its just overwriting existing profile and 'not creating a backup' - .bak (normally it wouildn't - have you got something in place to do this)?

I've heard of 2k not recognising that its existing user - but it always leaves old profile intact.

So if you could just clarify what is happening & how your system is set up please.

 

[HeyNewgirl]

Hi,

Yes this is a domain environment and we are not using roaming profiles. I have always seen a .bak being created when the userid is not recognized. I thought maybe it was an id issue because the person who this happened to got a new pc while we were trying to find his data and it happened again. The third time it happened, the victim of the first go around was using the pc of another person. But he was not the person who lost the data...the user of the pc he was on was not recognized the next time he logged in. None of these people have Admin rights so they do not have any ability to load any programs.

 

[beerhunter2]

Hmmm. Same person involved in all 3 computer problems. Sounds suspiciously like a virus to me. Maybe one in an email, a web site this person visits, or from a data file on diskette.

Have you got the latest updates for your Virus scanner, and have you checked for this?