What's happened to my Windows 7 account?

08
2014-07
  • Michael Itzoe

    As we all know, Microsoft released a bundle of updates on Patch Tuesday yesterday. I dutifully told Windows Update to install and I went to bed. This evening, when I finally got back on my computer, things are weird.

    First thing I noticed is none of my pinned Start Menu items are in the pin area. But if I go to any of the shortcuts in All Programs and right-click, the option says "Unpin from Start Menu." I rebooted, and this behavior persisted. I went to Outlook 2007's shortcut and told it to unpin and it appeared in the pin area (highlighted, too -- I turn highlighting off).

    I opened Filezilla, and it welcomed me to the latest update, which I haven't done in a couple weeks. My site manager was empty. Grrr.

    I opened Outlook, and immediately got "an error occurred in the folder shortcuts file (.fav). Outlook will recreate the default folder shortcuts." I reopened Outlook with the /resetnavpane switch and got the same. My favorites are gone.

    Also, dropdown menus throughout Windows seem to be aligned along their right edges (not the text, just the menus).

    I've tried searching, but I'm not sure what to search for. Everything I found regarding Outlook told how to fix it (which didn't work) but not why it was happening. Everything I found regarding Windows 7 was release candidate. I also pored through the event viewer but didn't see anything untoward. I ran a full scan in Security Essentials, everything came up clean.

    It really seems like something in my profile got hosed. I haven't noticed any missing files, nor missing browser favorites, but clearly something has happened. I'd really like to avoid reinstalling. I also haven't tried using a restore point because all the updates will want to install again, and I just don't have the time to install them one by one.

    EDIT: By the way, Outlook won't Send/Receive. No error, it just doesn't do anything. My account settings are still there. Also, I performed a System Restore, and no change. Maybe it doesn't have anything to do with the updates, but it still seems awfully coincidental to me.

    So... any ideas?

    • Answers
  • Michael Itzoe

    I don't know if Window Updates caused this or not, but I found the fix.

    In the registry, I went to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Volatile Environment. The AppData key's value was, literally, %APPDATA%. I changed it to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming, rebooted, and everything is working again.

    I found the solution in Nihir's post here.

    So, yes, basically, it was an issue with my user profile, as Windows no longer had a valid value for the %APPDATA% system variable.

  • Jared Harley

    Sounds like you're right about the profile.

    Take a look in your C:\Users\ directory and see if there is another profile folder with a similar name - so if your username is michael, look for michael.000. If you see a folder like this, Windows created a new profile folder for you. You should be able to copy over your favorites, documents, etc, from the .000 folder to the current one.

  • studiohack

    System Restore probably would have helped...for future reference...


    • Related Question

    Is there a quicker way to switch user accounts on Windows 7?
  • Edward Tanguay

    In our household multiple people use Windows 7 on one machine, each with his own account.

    To switch, we do this:

    • press WINDOWS-L
    • click "switch user" (wait 3-4 seconds)
    • click on user icon
    • type in password
    • press enter (wait 2-3 seconds)

    Is there a faster way to quickly log into another account?


    • Related Answers
  • Moab

    See this post, it is for Vista but should work for W7. The only other thing that could speed up the process is to remove the passwords from the accounts.

    http://blog.dotsmart.net/2008/01/17/shortcut-to-switch-user-in-windows-vista/

  • Alex

    Yes, there is a quicker way Press Ctrl + Alt + Del, then click switch user, etc.

    If time is important to you you will save around 3 sec!

  • Daisetsu

    There is no faster way, there has to be some way to tell the computer you want to switch users (WINDOWS-L). Then you need to choose which user you want. Then you need to authenticate (unless you remove the password).

    There's absolutely no quicker way to do this other than just using a single account. What steps could be removed, you will still have to select the account and type in a password. You will still have to activate some change user window.

    Maybe if you just each want your own desktop you could get a windowing program (makes multiple desktops which each hold their own windows. Here's one http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/