If you encounter a corrupted user profile on Windows, you can follow these steps to fix it:
- Sign in with the local account
- Open Regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
- Find the profile keys with the same matching numbers, Example :
S-1-5-21 123456-123456-123456 (The new one .Temp)
S-1-5-21 123456-123456-123456.bak (The .bak is supposed to be the original before the profile corruption)
- Rename the new key without the extension to .bak1
S-1-5-21 123456-123456-123456 (The new one .Temp) to S-1-5-21 123456-123456-123456.bak1 - Remove the extension .bak from the original profile S-1-5-21 123456-123456-123456.bak to S-1-5-21 123456-123456-123456
- Reboot the machine