Corrupt user profile on Server 2003

I believe I have a corrupt profile on one of our servers at work. I can't delete the profile because it always says the ntuser.dat file is in use. I can't read anything in my menu's because they are all black. The desktop looks normal though.

I have run out of ideas so I am wondering if anybody else has a good way to get rid of corrupt profiles.

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Comments

blargoe

Did you reboot?

dabve3

Yes the server has been rebooted at least once since this has happened maybe more.

dgbarr

Roaming? Have you attempted to use the user profile hive cleanup service?

Trailerisf

Try looking at the security permissions on the folder, go to advanced then owner. Make your account the owner and rename the folder to OLD.

dabve3

Made myself the owner but could not rename the folder as it still says it is in use. I am not familiar with the user profile hive cleanup service. Is it fairly easy to use? Also my profile is a local profile not a roaming one.

RTmarc

You'll have to sign in a local admin or a different user before you can rename the folder.

Sie

Is this a local profile or a server housing users profile within the domain?

snadam

this sounds like something similar to an issue I had every now and then, assuming this is a LOCAL PROFILE issue at hand. My suggestion is to:

1. reboot your server agian.

2. From here, DO NOT LOG IN as the user with the corrupt profile. log in as somebody else and delete the corrupt user profile folder (or NTUSER.DAT file, either way most of your settings will be gone). NTuser.dat is always in use when your logged on as that person.

3. Then log back in as the user with corrupt profile. windows will make a new profile from scratch based of the default user profile on that machine, or pull down your roaming profile from your profile share.

An alternate method is to delete it from another machine. This is useful if you only know of one way to log into the server machine:

1. repeat step 1 above and wait for the server to come back up.
2. From an alternate PC or server on the same network, type in the UNC path of where the corrupt profile folder is and delete.
3. Log back in to server as the user in question.

you can try the renaming the folder in question instead of deleting it, depending on the scenario. You can then put everything back (except for ntuser.dat, because its done) into the new folder it creates when you log back in. I usually delete it because its locally cached profiles that get corrupt in a roaming profile environment.

theseman

You can also rename the profile (backup_profilename) or similar, and get them to log in again, which will load a new profile from the default user profile. Works nice on corrupt local user profiles.

-Travis

garv221

dabve3 wrote:

I have run out of ideas so I am wondering if anybody else has a good way to get rid of corrupt profiles.

Reboot. Login as a local admin, delete the profiles through system properties or manually delete them through docs & settings and then remove the user rights from the user account tool. Done