User Profile Service Failed

Recently came upon someone who came upon this logon problem.When logging on to her Windows 7 laptop she would get an error that would say "The user profile service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded.". First made sure password was correct but when using wrong password it would give your standard wrong password error.

Even when using another profile to logon and change password the same error message would show it's ugly head. So I then consulted my favorite computer trouble shooting partner called, Google.

So I type in the error message and I get some tips and links. One is the official Microsoft Support page. It lists a few solutions of which none were simple. The least simple one involved fooling with the Registry. I know better than to fool with the registry unless I really have to.

Another link at Toms Hardware suggested doing a system restore. Being a fan of trying the simplest solution first I thought this would be worth a try. First I had to reboot into safe mode by pressing F8 on restart and selecting "Safe Mode". When I found my system restore I picked a date that seemed not too long ago. Unfortunately the first try wasn't working so I tried again with a later date. This one did the trick fortunately.

I'm glad this one turned out with a happy ending. I hope this would help someone else out with a similar problem. Have a great day and good luck!

How to fix or recover User Account in XP

I came along this article by Greg Shultz of TechRepublic that goes along with my recent video on User accounts. A very good read if you've had your User Account come up with an error or become corrupt and your unable to recover or log on to your account with all your precious data.