Windows 8 All User Settings Gone

Skully · 18 Feb 2013 at 10:29

Hi all,

One of my colleagues at work had an automatic shut down for updates. When he logged back in, everything had gone back to before changes were made.

No documents on desktop, no short cuts, Outlook needed setting up again.

Does anyone know a solution for this, to prevent it from happening again and is it possible to recover the documents that went from the Desktop?

It's connected to SBS 2003.

Thanks for your help

theheyes · 18 Feb 2013 at 10:33

I take it you've tried rebooting again? Sounds like it could possibly be a problem with loading the profile.

Skully · 18 Feb 2013 at 10:39

Yes I have. I'm going to attempt a system restore but this is irritating. I thought I had fixed it with another user a long time ago but I can't recall where I found the information online.

theheyes · 18 Feb 2013 at 10:43

It is annoying but there should be no data loss, the files will still be on the disk and recoverable.

Deleting the profile from the registry on the local machine and then logging on to the domain again has worked for me in the past on a few Windows 7 boxes.

Skully · 18 Feb 2013 at 10:48

Thank you, where would I find the Desktop files? I looked in C: users etc but couldn't see anything.

this_is_gav · 18 Feb 2013 at 10:54

C:\Users\loginname\Desktop for their own desktop content.

C:\Users\Public\Desktop for the shared desktop stuff (usually just icons created by installers).

Skully · 18 Feb 2013 at 10:56

That's where I looked

edscdk · 18 Feb 2013 at 10:57

windows xp, vista, and 7 never delete users profile data the only thing that can happen is the profile gets corrupt and windwos crates a new empty one..

look in the c:\users folder for temp and loginname.someting folders... one will contain his data

teh other other thing that could happen if they have been redirect fomr their default locations or additional library paths have been added that were lost... in both these cases you jsut need to work out where the data was..