User Profile Service Failed to Logon. User profile cannot be loaded” in Windows Vista

t may happen that you cannot login to your system as the User Profile Service failed to logon. It may happen if the user profile was deleted by a user manually or by a program. As the security identifier (SID) is not deleted from the system when a user profile is deleted manually by some user, Vista tries to load the profile using ProfileImagePath that contains the location of the user profile which is not in existent now. It may also happen that the user profile folder has been renamed accidentally or deliberately.

Note: You may try System Restore feature using Perform System Restore in Windows Vista to fix this problem.

You can fix the problem by following these steps:

1) Log on to your system using separate Administrator account. You can opt for Method 1 or Method 2

Note: If you have only one Administrator account that has been corrupted then go to step 2

2) Boot to Safe Mode. You can opt for Method 1 or Method 2 now.


Method 1: Editing Registry Keys

1) Open Registry Editor

2) Navigate to the key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList in the left pane



Figure 1


3) Now click on the SID key S-1-5-21-… (longer value) having .bak extension

Note:
• To make sure that this is the problematic profile check out for ProfileImagePathoption in the right pane

• You may have an SID key with the same name without .bak extension

4) If you have two SID keys S-1-5-21-…. with the same values follow these steps:

a) Right click on the key that does not have .bak extension and choose Rename option




Figure 2


b) Add .bk to it at the last



Figure 3


c) Now right click on the SID key S-1-5-21-…. with .bak extension and choose Rename

d) Remove .bak extension

e) In the similar fashion change the key with .bk extension (as done in steps a and b) to .bak extension



Figure 4


f) Proceed to step 6


5) If you have one SID key S-1-5-21-…. with .bak extension follow these steps:

a) Right click on the SID key S-1-5-21-…. with .bak extension and choose Rename option



Figure 5


b) Remove .bak extension from it

6) Now click on the SID key S-1-5-21-…. without .bak extension. Double click the option RefCount in the right pane



Figure 6


7) Type 0 in the Value data textbox. Press OK button



Figure 7


8) Now click on the SID key S-1-5-21-…. without .bak extension. Double click the option State in the right pane as highlighted in the Figure 6

9) Type 0 in the Value data textbox. Press OK button



Figure 8


10) Close Registry Editor and restart your PC to see if the problem has been rectified


Method 2: Deleting User Account

Note: You may loose your data.

1) Delete the User Account having problem

2) Open Registry Editor

3) Navigate to the key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList in the left pane

4) Now click on the SID key S-1-5-21-…. which may have .bak extension

Note: To make sure that this is the problematic profile check out for ProfileImagePathoption in the right pane

5) Right click on the SID key and choose Export option



Figure 9


6) Type a name for it and save to a desired location



Figure 10


7) Right click on the SID key and choose Delete option



Figure 11

8) Click Yes button to confirm

9) Close Registry Editor

10) Create a new Administrator account

11) Restart your PC and log on to the new account