Temporary profile issue

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A temporary user profile is issued each time an error condition prevents the user's profile from loading. Temporary profiles are deleted at the end of each session, and changes made by the user to their desktop settings and files are lost when the user logs off. On a Vista client computer, you may encounter profile issues if you log on with a user in the Guests group. This article will discuss this problem.

 

When you log on to a computer installed with Vista, you may encounter the following behavior:

• User profile being deleted on log off

• Desktop icons, files and other profile related items being not saved

• Getting a temporary profile each time you logon to either the standalone computer or domain

 

For instance, Right click on Computer and Select Properties, Select Advanced system settings under Control Panel > System, Under User Profiles select Settings, The Status for the profile will be Temporary

The prime reason of why this would happen is because the user is part of the local Guests or "Domain Guests" group. This affects administrators as well.

What we should do? Remove the user in question from the local Guests or "Domain guests" group and that should do it.

For local users:

1. Click Start

2. Right click Computer and Select Manage

3. Select Local Users and Groups > Groups

4. Double click Guests

5. Check if the user that is having the issue is a member of the Guests group

6. If so, remove the user from the Guests group

7. Log off the workstation and log back on

8. Verify the profile is now local

If the issue is happening on multiple machines for the same user in a domain, check the Domain Guests group:

1. Open “Active Directory Users and Computers” (dsa.msc)

2. Select the Users container

3. Double click “Domain Guests”

4. Select the Members tab

5. Check if the user that is having the issue is a member of the Domain Guests group

6. Repeated steps 2-5 with the "Guests" group

If the problem still exists and the user is not a member of the Guests or Domain Guests group, verify the user is not a member of a group which is a member of the Guests or Domain Guests groups. Furthermore, if the user is not member or not nested to be a member of Guests or Domain Guests, mostly, the original profile is corrupted, and please engage administrator to check.