6 ms·

Was the profile actually corrupted or was that their interpretation? Losing connection to an online Microsoft account can also result in a user ending up with a

Was the profile actually corrupted or was that their interpretation? Losing connection to an online Microsoft account can also result in a user ending up with a temporary account. (My story: just last week I fixed a temporary profile issue for an acquaintance and all that had happened was that Windows messed up the connection with her online Microsoft account. After signing out and in again, it worked fine. I was surprised at first because I wasn't aware that such a thing as temporary profiles existed. It became clear that she was working on a wrong profile once I opened a shell and the path before the prompt said "c:\users\temp".) There are definitely warnings that any work/data stored in the temporary profile would be lost, so maybe they did not take these seriously enough. The only thing that I actually find absolutely unforgivable is that the temporary profile is named after her normal account. Creating temporary accounts with ample warnings, yeah, not great. Pretending to be the profile of the user...? Nope

raffraffraff 4y ago
The temporary profile doesn't really pretend to be the user, but Explorer's default (which I hate) is to obscure the full path, "C:\Users\TEMP" and just show the username. You have to hit "CTRL + l" to see the actual path. You can't even navigate 'up' a directory to see where you are, and if you right-click in that directory there is no "Properties". I tried talking them through this on the phone before they shut the computer off. It was basically impossible to figure out over the phone. This type of "magic" bullshit really irritates me.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  > This type of "magic" bullshit really irritates me. Microsoft seems to have tried to get rid of outmoded notions such as directories, without ever articulating what new model they favoured. So you get these privileged spaces (I have no better word) like "Documents". They've tried to make Explorer as invisible as possible. But they never finished the job! So you end up with a mess of "AppData" (apparently a normal directory) and "Application Data" (not accessible). I presume the first is an alias for the second; but the second should be invisible if it's not accessible (there are other directories like this). This started with Win7. Then they stopped abruptly, but never reverted these aborted changes. It's as if there's nobody in charge. My guess is that forcing Microsoft accounts, "instrumentation", and failed attempts to hegemonize mobile were prioritized over fixing what they'd broken. NT4 was a reasonable OS, with a rotten commandline. Nothing they've shipped since has come close.
  - amluto 4y ago
    It’s like how Windows seems to have at least four different control panels now. There’s whatever comes up if you search for, say, “user accounts”. There’s the actual Control Panel. There’s MMC. And there’s the group policy editor. (Maybe that last one gets a pass.) And all of these partially duplicate functionality. Want to change the password of a different user account? You can’t do it from the user account panel - you can only do it from the other user account panel.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Same half baked changes. It was too time consuming to change everything, so they only changed surface level stuff that ‘normal’ users need.
    - rejectfinite 4y ago
      MMC and Group policy do way more than user accounts. But yes it is a mess and only as an IT person I can somewhat make sense of when to use the modern Settings - Accounts, Control Panel users, MMC or sysdm.cpl
    - userbinator 4y ago
      And there’s the group policy editor. (Maybe that last one gets a pass.) I've always joked that the gpedit.msc is where the real settings are. It's one of the pieces that has stayed the same (and even been added to) while all the other parts are gradually dumbed-down and becoming less useful.
      - autoexec 4y ago
        Interestingly that's the one they decided to take away from the vast majority of their users. Just because Windows users paid for it doesn't mean it's not Microsoft's computer and MS doesn't want users messing with their stuff.
  - whoopdedo 4y ago
    "Application Data" and "Program Files" were chosen for Windows 95 as a safety valve for programs that were upgraded to work with long files but might still be making assumptions such as filenames won't have a space. It would cause them to fail early so those bugs could be fixed. But it also made the 250 character path limit much easier to reach. When the NT unification happened with 2000/XP the shorter AppData was used with "Application Data" remaining as a junction point to the roaming profile for compatibility.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
marcosdumay 4y ago
> Losing connection to an online Microsoft account can also result in a user ending up with a temporary account. What the fuck?! So it all but forces you to link your identity to something Microsoft owns... just to refuse your identity back and throwing you into some unrecognizable woods if Microsoft fails to validate it. I guess failing to log you on your own computer because MS is down would enrage people. So it's better to gaslight them until they give up.
- _Microft 4y ago
  Creating an account allows to choose between using a Microsoft account or creating a local account.
  - Tempest1981 4y ago
    But doesn't windows later prompt you to migrate to a Microsoft account? And there's this nagging alert that keeps popping up: "Microsoft account problem." "We need to fix your microsoft account. (Most likely your password changed). Select here to fix it in shared experiences settings." Which I assume most novice users would obey. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/seeing-the-microsoft-account-problem-pop-up/eba096d0-752c-436c-81ca-24247e56c867 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/seeing...
    - salawat 4y ago
      Also, in the latest versions of the windows 11 install or OEM first boot setups, the only way you can get the local account option is to kill every network connection. The local account option is hidden otherwise. My ritual for family machine setup is locate wifi kill switch-> if not available, announce wireless going down-> kill network->setup to local account->reenable network It's patently infuriating. Throw in where I've had family members set up Microsoft accounts with only 1 form of auth (Phone number), change that, them get locked out of their Microsft account for a month because of Microsoft's daft policies. Though I didn't set up that machine. It boggles the mind that Microsoft's default flow would run the risk of such an outcome.
criddell 4y ago
> Was the profile actually corrupted How do you diagnose a corrupt profile? What causes corruption? Is there some diagnostic I can run that will detect and repair corruption before it's too late?
- raffraffraff 4y ago
  ^ yeah, this. Since the user doesn't create their own profile, and it's all arcane internal windows crap, why can't it be a bit more helpful than "Woopsie, you're in a temporary profile now! Normal rules do not apply." Like, "Do you want Windows to create a new profile and try to migrate your data to it?"
rejectfinite 4y ago
>Losing connection to an online Microsoft account can also result in a user ending up with a temporary account. Not on Windows 7

raffraffraff 4y ago

The temporary profile doesn't really pretend to be the user, but Explorer's default (which I hate) is to obscure the full path, "C:\Users\TEMP" and just show the username. You have to hit "CTRL + l" to see the actual path. You can't even navigate 'up' a directory to see where you are, and if you right-click in that directory there is no "Properties". I tried talking them through this on the phone before they shut the computer off. It was basically impossible to figure out over the phone. This type of "magic" bullshit really irritates me.

denton-scratch 4y ago
> This type of "magic" bullshit really irritates me. Microsoft seems to have tried to get rid of outmoded notions such as directories, without ever articulating what new model they favoured. So you get these privileged spaces (I have no better word) like "Documents". They've tried to make Explorer as invisible as possible. But they never finished the job! So you end up with a mess of "AppData" (apparently a normal directory) and "Application Data" (not accessible). I presume the first is an alias for the second; but the second should be invisible if it's not accessible (there are other directories like this). This started with Win7. Then they stopped abruptly, but never reverted these aborted changes. It's as if there's nobody in charge. My guess is that forcing Microsoft accounts, "instrumentation", and failed attempts to hegemonize mobile were prioritized over fixing what they'd broken. NT4 was a reasonable OS, with a rotten commandline. Nothing they've shipped since has come close.
- amluto 4y ago
  It’s like how Windows seems to have at least four different control panels now. There’s whatever comes up if you search for, say, “user accounts”. There’s the actual Control Panel. There’s MMC. And there’s the group policy editor. (Maybe that last one gets a pass.) And all of these partially duplicate functionality. Want to change the password of a different user account? You can’t do it from the user account panel - you can only do it from the other user account panel.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Same half baked changes. It was too time consuming to change everything, so they only changed surface level stuff that ‘normal’ users need.
  - rejectfinite 4y ago
    MMC and Group policy do way more than user accounts. But yes it is a mess and only as an IT person I can somewhat make sense of when to use the modern Settings - Accounts, Control Panel users, MMC or sysdm.cpl
  - userbinator 4y ago
    And there’s the group policy editor. (Maybe that last one gets a pass.) I've always joked that the gpedit.msc is where the real settings are. It's one of the pieces that has stayed the same (and even been added to) while all the other parts are gradually dumbed-down and becoming less useful.
    - autoexec 4y ago
      Interestingly that's the one they decided to take away from the vast majority of their users. Just because Windows users paid for it doesn't mean it's not Microsoft's computer and MS doesn't want users messing with their stuff.
- whoopdedo 4y ago
  "Application Data" and "Program Files" were chosen for Windows 95 as a safety valve for programs that were upgraded to work with long files but might still be making assumptions such as filenames won't have a space. It would cause them to fail early so those bugs could be fixed. But it also made the 250 character path limit much easier to reach. When the NT unification happened with 2000/XP the shorter AppData was used with "Application Data" remaining as a junction point to the roaming profile for compatibility.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

marcosdumay 4y ago

> Losing connection to an online Microsoft account can also result in a user ending up with a temporary account. What the fuck?! So it all but forces you to link your identity to something Microsoft owns... just to refuse your identity back and throwing you into some unrecognizable woods if Microsoft fails to validate it. I guess failing to log you on your own computer because MS is down would enrage people. So it's better to gaslight them until they give up.

_Microft 4y ago
Creating an account allows to choose between using a Microsoft account or creating a local account.
- Tempest1981 4y ago
  But doesn't windows later prompt you to migrate to a Microsoft account? And there's this nagging alert that keeps popping up: "Microsoft account problem." "We need to fix your microsoft account. (Most likely your password changed). Select here to fix it in shared experiences settings." Which I assume most novice users would obey. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/seeing-the-microsoft-account-problem-pop-up/eba096d0-752c-436c-81ca-24247e56c867 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/seeing...
  - salawat 4y ago
    Also, in the latest versions of the windows 11 install or OEM first boot setups, the only way you can get the local account option is to kill every network connection. The local account option is hidden otherwise. My ritual for family machine setup is locate wifi kill switch-> if not available, announce wireless going down-> kill network->setup to local account->reenable network It's patently infuriating. Throw in where I've had family members set up Microsoft accounts with only 1 form of auth (Phone number), change that, them get locked out of their Microsft account for a month because of Microsoft's daft policies. Though I didn't set up that machine. It boggles the mind that Microsoft's default flow would run the risk of such an outcome.

criddell 4y ago

> Was the profile actually corrupted How do you diagnose a corrupt profile? What causes corruption? Is there some diagnostic I can run that will detect and repair corruption before it's too late?

raffraffraff 4y ago
^ yeah, this. Since the user doesn't create their own profile, and it's all arcane internal windows crap, why can't it be a bit more helpful than "Woopsie, you're in a temporary profile now! Normal rules do not apply." Like, "Do you want Windows to create a new profile and try to migrate your data to it?"

rejectfinite 4y ago

>Losing connection to an online Microsoft account can also result in a user ending up with a temporary account. Not on Windows 7