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A bit about current setup:

It is windows 2008 R2 AD servers (all of them are 2008R2) and couple locations which set as Sites. Each location has DFS on AD server. Roaming profiles are not used nor configured. Users have their home folder configured as mapped S: drive to DFS shared folder. For example: in profile tab user has: Home Folder -> connect -> S: to \\domain.com\dc\users\%username%

We also have redirected Desktop, Documents and Downloads folders to \\domain.com\dc\users.

Everything was fine. Suddenly (today), users in most locations lost their local profile (both XP and W7 desktops) and got temporary profiles. Also, it looks like local profile was created today (from folder properties).

I checked events at couple machines and there is not errors related to profiles or logon process. I do not see issues in event logs at servers as well.

Basically, I run out of ideas what is wrong and why machines lost their local profiles.

PS: Laptop users do not have their folders redirected, but lost profiles as well.

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  • 1
    so logged in as a user that has a temp profile directiry do the following "dir \\domain.com\dc\users\%username%" at a command prompt
    – tony roth
    Oct 19, 2012 at 18:25
  • Well, all users are using their desktops now, so I cannot try it right now, but explorer can browse all shares and redirected folders normally.
    – Serhiy
    Oct 19, 2012 at 18:30
  • so the s: drive is mapped correctly?
    – tony roth
    Oct 19, 2012 at 18:32
  • had to re-read things, so they only had local profiles correct? If so then maybe permission are screwed up on their old profile.
    – tony roth
    Oct 19, 2012 at 18:35
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    With whats being described none of this really makes sense.
    – tony roth
    Oct 19, 2012 at 18:54

3 Answers 3

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There are several possible reasons for Windows to issue a temporary profile instead of a regular user profile. One of them is that the user logging on is a guest. Others include missing permissions and incorrectly deleted profiles. See this article for a full list:

http://helgeklein.com/blog/2011/11/temporary-user-profiles/

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I found a solution here: http://www.networksteve.com/windows/topic.php/Domain_joined_but_trying_to_log_on_gives_temporary_profile_only/?TopicId=20834&Posts=1

Some one added "Domain Users" group into "Domain Guests" group. That ruined my whole day.

Thanks tony for helping me.

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. Please clear up all the .bak files in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList of the terminal server.

  1. Please manually delete these temporary profiles on the terminal server.
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    That is unlikely in the extreme to remedy the cause of this problem, though it will temporarily hide it. Oct 4, 2013 at 7:31
  • Here's the PowerShell one-liner that will clean up the orphaned keys: dir 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList'|?{-Not(Test-Path $_.GetValue('ProfileImagePath'))}|%{rm -recurse ($_.Name-replace'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE','HKLM:')}
    – Tim Lewis
    Feb 16, 2016 at 22:44

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