Locked out user

I was setting up a new computer for our childrens lab.  Somehow when I shut down for the night I locked the library user or child icons out.  Now when the computer boots up the admin,  library user, and child icons come up but if I click on library user or child it just logs out without ever going to the desktop.  They are not password protected.   I have tried deleting the user accounts and creating new ones with the same result.  It is a windows vista operating system.  I have set several other computers up with Vista with no problems.  I am the accidental techie and am at a loss of where to go from here.  Thanks for any help.

Try creating the users with a different name.  If that works then there is aspects of the profile that didn't delete when you created the user.

Dave

Good idea but I tried that.  I started with library user and deleted it and tried child and the same thing happens.  It's so weird.  When I click the icon it just starts logging off.  My admin icon works fine. 

Sandy

The fastest resolution may be to reload the OS from scratch, wiping the hard drive first to be sure, but that doesn't offer any learning experience of what happened and why.

My guess is when it shut down that previous night, something got corrupted that now when you login it initiates the logoff action.

This could be a corrupted policy, errors in the registry, a bad file pointed to by the HKEY CURRENT USER area of the registry, a bad file in the startup file folder for the users, a permission error.

A couple of things to try,

1.  Install a tool like ccleaner and disable allot of the startup items to see deactivating some piece of global software allows the other logins to work

2.  Clean out the temp files under the user codes that don't work

3.  Change the user codes that don't work to give them administrator rights and see if the login works then

4.  Check out this result from a google search http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/221912-standard-user-account-just-logs-off.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555648

Dave

Ok so I tried #1 and that didn't work.  Tried #3 and it worked fine as an Admin account.  So I guess I could just leave it at that and let all the kids change things to their little hearts content! 

So when I looked for temp files under the user codes, there wasn't anything to delete.

I also looked at the 2 links that you sent.  Most of the stuff that they suggested is way over my head.  I did do the free scan to fix Vista errors.  It showed 3 user errors and then of course you have to purchase the product to fix the errors.  It showed about 60 errors in our Vista. 

I think this accidental techie is ready to give up.  Not only is this computer giving fits but now my computer at home is acting up.  Easy fix there.

I think that maybe just reloading the os will be the best idea. 

Thanks

Sandy

Sometimes that can be the simplest answer :).  Sandy, when you have some extra time on your hands, take a look at the free add-on to Windows called Microsoft Steady State.  It might help you avoid problems like this in the future.  I'm not positive how easy it would be for an accidental techie to install, but I think if you're handy enough to reinstall an OS, you are probably handy enough to set this up.

Chris's suggestion is an excellent one,  I would suggest you image the hard drive after you get it reloaded with all your updates, so that in the future if you have to reload the OS you have a place to start above ground zero.  I use Acronis with the self booting disk to image a machine, there is also Ghost from symantec.  I would suggest a commercial product as it is easier to set up and use than any of the open source solutions for imaging.

One note on steady state,  don't create any users that you want to protect before installing steady state,  It likes to create the user its self and doesn't play well with existing users.  Also if you really want specific login names, image the box before creating the steady state users so you can easily restore the box to the starting point, once you get use to steady state you will be fine with it.  It really is pretty easy to set up and lock down a user with it.

Dave

[Note:  Steady state is not really meant to be used with computers that log on to a domain,  group policy is used then]

I can back Dave up on recommending Acronis for imaging.  Its much easier to use and understand than the open source software out there.