Recover a user profile in Vista

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This guide is provided for informational purposes only. If you choose to use this guide for anything more than information, you do so "At Your Own Risk".

  • Sometimes a users profile can get so messed up that it is vastly more work to try and repair it than to create a new one. This process will also work to clean up an older user profile if you just want a clean slate and your personal data.
  • You will need a second user profile with admin rights to complete this process.
  • Reboot the computer and log in as the secondary user with admin rights. The reboot will make sure there are no open files or permission locks on the user profile
  • You'll want to go to the C:\Users folder and locate the folder that matches the user name you want to recover
  • Run this command in a cmd prompt 
 takeown /r /a /d y /f %systemdrive%\users\<username>
  • Rename the folder that matches the user name you intend to recover to <username>.old
  • Create a directory with the same user name. (i.e. C:\users\<username>
  • Run this command in a cmd prompt 
takeown /r /u <username> /f %systemdrive%\users\<username>
  • Run regedit and go to 
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
  • click on each sub folder in the ProfileList folder until you fine the one that shows the correct file path for the user. The "ProfileImagePath" should be C:\Users\<username>
  • Delete the SID key for this profile
  • Logoff the computer
  • Log in as the user and a new profile should be created.
  • Copy over the date you want from the C:\users\<username>.old folder

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