Related user profile problems at different client sites?

[Guest John Hupp]

I got a call from one client today who can't open My Documents. Error:

"This file or directory is corrupt and unreadable."

 

Another client yesterday had a problem that started with a serial label

printer not being detected. While troubleshooting that I tried to run a

System Restore to Friday. That failed. I ran a Safe Mode System Restore to

Thursday and that succeeded, but it created a new user profile tree!! If

the user's original profile folder was Hanna and the computer's name was

DELL, then the new profile folder was Hanna.DELL. (The same behavior you

would get if you were doing a fresh reinstallion of Windows without

reformatting.) The old profile folder was still there (thank the Lord!),

but I hadn't seen this behavior from System Restore before. Not only that,

but System Restore does not offer an option to Undo the last restoration.

(Anyone know if it System Restore fails to offer that when you have run the

operation from Safe Mode?)

 

I tried to run a Normal Mode System Restore to Saturday, and that failed as

the Normal Mode Sys Restore to Friday had. But a Safe Mode Sys Restore to

Saturday succeeded, and this time it reverted to the original user profile

folder tree. There is still no option to Undo the last system restore.

 

The printer still doesn't work, but at least I have backed out of some scary

behavior by Windows System Restore.

 

This computer is just a couple months old, a very nice Core 2 Duo machine.

Running Norton AntiVirus with a year's subscription.

 

It seemed related to client #1's problem -- both having an issue with their

user profiles within a day of each other.

 

For the moment I am continuing to troubleshoot (1) corrupt My Documents

issue and (1) non-detecting serial printer, but I'm also posting this to see

if others are finding similar problems cropping up. Just to see if there is

another bad Windows Update or security software update out there.

 

--John Hupp