Windows 10 Desktop Issues

Lil Frier

Platinum Member
Oct 3, 2013
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My brother-in-law's PC is having an issue with the desktop icons. Recently, his desktop files all went away--the links/files themselves, not just the icons. Upon looking into it, I noticed that in the File Explorer, the pinned "Desktop" link is to OneDrive (user\OneDrive\Desktop is the path, I think). I tried unpinning it, but it doesn't allow for it. I also found that the proper desktop folder still exists in the expected directory (c:\users\user\Desktop), along with all of the links/files expected. I tried pinning that to Quick Access, and it won't allow that either. I can do anything I want to Quick Access except unlink the OneDrive Desktop path and link the proper one.

I would assume this is somehow related, but I have been unable to find this issue online or a resolution to it. Has anyone else happened to see this occur or have any ideas on how I might resolve it?
 

daveybrat

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jan 31, 2000
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It's because Windows 10 couldn't load his user profile so it created a 'Temp' account. The 'Temp' account is usable but does not contain any of his shortcuts or files. I usually recommend opening system restore and go back in time a day or a few to see if that fixes it.

If it doesn't it may be his hard drive starting to develop bad sectors and creating the 'Temp' account because the real one is corrupted.
 

Lil Frier

Platinum Member
Oct 3, 2013
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Odd, it's a pretty clean drive. I would be surprised if it (Samsung 850 Pro) would be going bad that quickly. I'll have to look into a restore, but it seems like an odd way for them to resolve the issue, switching to a OneDrive profile that you can't remove or replace.

Is there any way to force it o try the primary account again? It seems to hold the same credentials on the "temp" one, but nothing else carried over. I might just look into copying the primary account's folders off to the storage HDD and blast the OS to start fresh (though it just got a clean install less than 4 months ago).
 

RLGL

Platinum Member
Jan 8, 2013
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Create a new account and delete the old. What does Samsung magician say about the drive?
 

Elenax

Junior Member
Apr 20, 2018
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The same happens to my system few days back. At first i thought every thing is gone but thankfully its restored on the next boot. I scan the hard drive for viruses and installed the fresh copy of windows...for now problem seem to be resolved.
 

Lil Frier

Platinum Member
Oct 3, 2013
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Temp profiles on Windows 10 will require a registry edit... I deal with this quite often in our environment, and it's typically caused by someone trying to delete a user profile incorrectly.

https://winaero.com/blog/windows-10-youve-been-signed-in-with-a-temporary-profile/

See, it's never presented that error for me. Everything comes up OK, no issues or errors. If it were my own PC, I'd just reinstall Windows and call it good, but since it's not (and I don't know the next day I'll get to check into the thing and test solutions), I have to be more...graceful? Rebooting the PC, everything started up perfectly fine. I'm going to try rotating the profile to a new one, then resetting it, as well as checking whether Restore Points are available to it (the original install was a few months ago). If I can remember, I'll install Magician and check it, as was suggested.