Profiles Missing or Not Visible

[Guest Thomas M.]

XP SP2

 

I work in second-tier support and we have a first-tier Network Administrator

who is reporting something which I have never seen. He is attempting to

setup a new machine for a new employee, and he claims that when he logs on

to the computer with the employee's user ID, that no profile gets created.

As far as I know, that's not possible.

 

We haven't actually gotten our hands on the machine yet, so maybe this post

is a little premature as it could end up being something simple. But I

thought I would pose the question anyway just so that once we *do* get a

look at the machine we will have some ideas of what to look for.

 

Is there a way that the profile could be getting created and yet not be

visible? Is there in fact a way for the person to logon WITHOUT a profile

getting created?

 

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

--Tom

[Guest Thomas M.]

Re: Profiles Missing or Not Visible

 

> Is there a way that the profile could be getting created and yet not be

> visible? Is there in fact a way for the person to logon WITHOUT a profile

> getting created?

 

I have some more information on this. We got our hands on the machine in

question, and the profile IS getting created, but it's getting created as

TEMP. The computer takes forever to login and actually create the profile.

We did find some events in the logs which imply that roaming profiles have

been setup. We are thinking that the computer is trying to locate the

roaming profile and when it fails to locate that profile it creates the TEMP

profile.

 

--Tom

[Guest Thomas M.]

Re: Profiles Missing or Not Visible

 

 

"Thomas M." <NoEmailReplies@Please.com> wrote in message

news:%23$AD4jeiIHA.944@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

>> Is there a way that the profile could be getting created and yet not be

>> visible? Is there in fact a way for the person to logon WITHOUT a

>> profile getting created?

>

> I have some more information on this. We got our hands on the machine in

> question, and the profile IS getting created, but it's getting created as

> TEMP. The computer takes forever to login and actually create the

> profile. We did find some events in the logs which imply that roaming

> profiles have been setup. We are thinking that the computer is trying to

> locate the roaming profile and when it fails to locate that profile it

> creates the TEMP profile.

 

We have positively identified the problem. The Network Administrator we

have been working with was NOT at fault here. We went into the user account

in AD and found that a former second-tier admin appears to have attempted to

setup Terminal Services via a Citrix server by configuring settings in the

AD account. Unfortunately, the Terminal Services profile path got entered

on the Profile tab instead of the Terminal Services Profile tab. The

*Profile* tab is for roaming profiles. So by putting the profile path on

the wrong tab our former admin gave the user a roaming profile instead of

Terminal Services. To compound the problem the path contained an invalid

server name. Each time the user authenticated to AD the system was trying

to locate the roaming profile on a server that does not exist, hence

explaining the prolonged login time and the creation of the TEMP profile on

the local machine.

 

--Tom

[Guest Malke]

Re: Profiles Missing or Not Visible

 

Thomas M. wrote:

 

> We have positively identified the problem. The Network Administrator we

> have been working with was NOT at fault here. We went into the user

> account in AD and found that a former second-tier admin appears to have

> attempted to setup Terminal Services via a Citrix server by configuring

> settings in the

> AD account. Unfortunately, the Terminal Services profile path got entered

> on the Profile tab instead of the Terminal Services Profile tab. The

> *Profile* tab is for roaming profiles. So by putting the profile path on

> the wrong tab our former admin gave the user a roaming profile instead of

> Terminal Services. To compound the problem the path contained an invalid

> server name. Each time the user authenticated to AD the system was trying

> to locate the roaming profile on a server that does not exist, hence

> explaining the prolonged login time and the creation of the TEMP profile

> on the local machine.

 

Those damn computers. Don't they know what we *really* wanted to do?! Thanks

for posting the solution. I never had the faintest idea of how to help you

but was quite interested to see the end result. And it was human error, as

it so often is. ;-)

 

Malke

--

MS-MVP

Elephant Boy Computers

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com

Don't Panic!

[Guest Thomas M.]

Re: Profiles Missing or Not Visible

 

> Those damn computers. Don't they know what we *really* wanted to do?!

> Thanks

> for posting the solution. I never had the faintest idea of how to help you

> but was quite interested to see the end result. And it was human error, as

> it so often is. ;-)

>

> Malke

> --

> MS-MVP

> Elephant Boy Computers

> http://www.elephantboycomputers.com

> Don't Panic!

 

Yep, computers will do what you tell them to do, and that's also the

problem.

 

We cracked this by logging in using the ID of one of the affected users and

noticing that there was no profile created for that user ID. So I directed

the tech who was sitting at the keyboard to right-click the Start button and

select the Explore option, knowing that this will always open Windows

Explorer to the Start Menu folder for the currently logged in profile.

Windows Explorer opened under a profile called TEMP (all caps). A little

Googling turned up that the TEMP profile can be related to roaming profiles,

which is what lead us to look at the AD account of the user, and the pieces

fell into place from that point.

 

I actually like troubleshooting these kinds of problems because I can learn

a lot in the process, and the problem is bizarre enough that I'll probably

never forget the fix.

 

--Tom