[library user]

Are you sure it’s not reoccurring spyware that’s causing this?

[floozy22]

Based on what I’ve heard about Vista, if even one quarter of it is true, I don’t want to touch it. Gonna stay with XP for as long as possible.

[WayneS]

George W. Bush’s fault.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

My dad had a very similar problem in XP and it was a virus.

[Kirkwood]

I’ve had far more problems in my experience with XP than I’ve ever had with Vista. In fact the only problems I’ve actually had involving Vista were with 3rd party companies not upgrading their products.

[AppyPappy]

It sounds viral.

[Kolb]

Also a prime example of why it is necessary to backup (make copies of) any data you cannot afford to lose on a source external to your computer (CD, DVD, external hard drive, flash drive, tape etc.) and then test the backup to make sure everything works. Then make a second copy to another source just in case (backup your backup).

[JHosprey]

All the fuss and you still have not provided a concise solution. By the way, the answer to this easily fixed issue is the same as most other problems. Google is your friend!

[ccmay]

I am so happy my family has gone 100% Mac and will never again have to deal with this crap. My mom has been using an iMac for her e-mail and Internet surfing for seven years now, without one single hiccup in all that time.

[MarkL]

You might want to check out this blog on the beta version of UPHClean (User Profile Hive Cleaner):

http://blogs.technet.com/uphclean

the problem sounds like the same sort of problem that was often fixed by UPHC. This problem has been around nearly as long as Windows 2000! However, according to the blog, UPHClean functionality was built into Vista natively.

Though I mentioned it in another post, one of the causes of corrupted user profiles is something keeping the user hive of the registry from unloading cleanly - something is still accessing it - so Windows has to force it closed when you logout. This presents itself by very long times to logout - I’ve seen as long as 3 minutes on Windows 2000. The current version of UPHC (1.6, I think) is for Win2K, XP, and Server 2003. When the hive becomes corrupted, Windows is forced to create a new user profile, with all new user settings (the user hive of the registry).

Anyway, here’s a link to the current version of UPHClean, although it won’t work on Vista - The latest beta (refer to the blog, above) might:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1B286E6D-8912-4E18-B570-42470E2F3582&displaylang=en

Mark