How to Solve “Can’t Log in to Account” and Temporary Profile Issues on Windows 10

When using a Windows 10 computer, you may encounter errors such as “Can’t log into the account” or “Logged in with a temporary profile“. This situation can prevent users from accessing their files, and all changes will be lost after logging off. This article will detail how to solve this problem and help you restore normal account access.

1. Why does this problem occur?

When logging in, Windows 10 loads the user profile (usually located in `C:\Users\username`). If the profile is corrupted or the system cannot read it, Windows may create a temporary profile (`C:\Users\TEMP`) and log in with it instead of the original account profile.

2. How to confirm if Windows is using a temporary profile?

1. Check the login prompt message: If the system prompts “Logged in with a temporary profile“, it means your current account has been replaced by a temporary profile.
2. Use the command line to check the profile: Press `Win + R`, type `cmd` and press Enter.
3. Enter the command:

   `echo %userprofile%`

    
4. If it returns `C:\Users\TEMP`, it indicates that you are in the temporary profile state.

3. How to solve the problem of not being able to log into the account?

3.1 Log off and log in again.

Sometimes, simply logging off and logging in again can solve the problem:

1. Click the Start menu > Account avatar > Log off.
2. Enter the username and password again on the login screen to log in.
3. If you still receive the same error, try other methods.

3.2 Modify the registry to fix the account profile.

If logging off is ineffective, you can modify the registry to restore the account.

3.2.1 Open the Registry Editor.

1. Press `Win + R`, type `regedit`, and press Enter.
2. In the pop – up User Account Control (UAC) window, select to run it with administrator privileges.

3.2.2 Locate ProfileList.

1. In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following path:

   `HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList`

    

2. Expand `ProfileList`, and you will see multiple sub items starting with `S – 1 – 5 -…`, each corresponding to a Windows account.

3.2.3 Find the affected account.

1. Click the search bar again, type “CMD“, and open the Command Prompt. Enter the command “whoami /user” in the Command Prompt.
2. At this time, the username and the corresponding Profile SID will be displayed. For example, the end of the displayed SID may be 1002.
3. Return to the Registry Editor and find the folder with the same SID as the one just obtained among the numerous Profile folders.
4. Usually, two items ending with this SID will be found, one without the “.bak” suffix and the other with the “.bak” suffix.
5. First, check the item without the “.bak” suffix. The value of its ProfileImagePath on the right is displayed as `C:\Users\Temp`, which indicates that this Profile is the user profile of the temporary account.
6. Then look at the item with the “.bak” suffix. Its ProfileImagePath value may be something like `C:\Users\Test1`, while the actual path corresponding to our original `test` user should be `C:\Users\Test`.
7. Select the item without the “.bak” suffix and ending with 1002, right – click and select “Delete” to remove it from the registry.
8. Double – click on the ProfileImagePath of the item with the “.bak” suffix and change “Test1” to “Test“.
9. Select the item with the “.bak” suffix, right – click and rename it, and remove its “.bak” suffix.

4. Conclusion.

When encountering the situation of not being able to log into the account or using a temporary profile in Windows 10, you can try to fix it by logging off and logging in again or modifying the registry. I hope this article can help you solve the problem smoothly and restore a normal Windows using experience!

5. Demo Video.

You can watch the following demo video by select the subtitle to your preferred subtitle language.