What's with guest account?

I've been reading lots of posts about guest account problems, but seem to
have encountered a new one. I turned on guest account in XP Home, rebooted
and tried to logon as guest. But all that happened is "loading personal
settings" appeared for a few seconds, then the two accounts (my
administrator and guest) returned. So I turned off guest and then tried
turning it on in Safe mode. This time when I logged on to guest, it said
"Windows cannot logon because the profile cannot be loaded." And I can't
find guest in Computer properties or with control userpasswords2. The same
stuff happens when I try to create a limited account. What the heck's the
matter?

Morgan

Morgan,

The two user account interfaces you mention mask some things.
Have you tried lusrmgr.msc ? and drill into the adv detail views.
A freshly defined limited account cannot log in but if you only
change it to being an admin it can ? Is that the case ?
And then, once it is changed by to being only a limited account
it can or cannot log in ?

--
Roger

"Morgan" <mjr@nesbit.com> wrote in message
news:%23H6PFjzQDHA.2476@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

> I've been reading lots of posts about guest account problems, but seem to
> have encountered a new one. I turned on guest account in XP Home,

rebooted

> and tried to logon as guest. But all that happened is "loading personal
> settings" appeared for a few seconds, then the two accounts (my
> administrator and guest) returned. So I turned off guest and then tried
> turning it on in Safe mode. This time when I logged on to guest, it said
> "Windows cannot logon because the profile cannot be loaded." And I can't
> find guest in Computer properties or with control userpasswords2. The

same

> stuff happens when I try to create a limited account. What the heck's the
> matter?
>
> Morgan
>
>
>

Wow Morgan, that is quite interesting , and strange.
(PS. you may have been able to just log off and in rather
than the full, but more certain, reboot step).

Part of the problem is resolving this is not knowing when
it started (one does not try using the Guest account every
day, nor defining a new account).
So, without that, it is hard to get the normal starting point
info, namely, what was changed just before - new settings,
new software / hardware installed, etc.

What do you mean by a "very limited desktop" ?
As in, some parts are there and some are not ? but the
parts are normal XP system parts (as compared to some
installed software products) ?

I am trying to think of less-than-drastic things to try (less
than say running sfc /scannow or reapplying Sp1 and the
post Sp1 updates) but it is sort of hard to get a foothold
on this . . .

Roger

"Morgan" <mjr@nesbit.com> wrote in message
news:OX5c6ZCRDHA.2276@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...

> Roger,
>
> I tried to run lusrmgr.msc but it denied access to local users because I'm
> using XP Home. So I created a new limited account, rebooted and couldn't
> open the new account. Changed it to Administrator, rebooted and was able

to

> open it to get a very limited desktop. Changed it back to a limited
> account, rebooted, logged in and after waiting about 5 minutes at Welcome
> screen, it finally opened to the same very limited desktop. Apparently, I
> now have a somewhat functioning limited account, but think something still
> needs cleaning up. Any further suggestions?
>
> Morgan
>
> "Roger Abell [MVP]" <mvpNoSpam@asu.edu> wrote in message
> news:%232lU2KBRDHA.2148@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...

> to

personal

tried

> said

> can't

> the

>
>