Author Topic: "profilelist" missing from Windows registry - now locked out....  (Read 1759 times)

"profilelist" missing from Windows registry - now locked out....
« on: 01 September, 2018, 11:14:11 am »
I'm cleaning up a PC so I can pass it on, and I wanted to remove all the user profiles. I googled, and the outcome was to edit the registry to remove the "profilelist". So I went into regedit, went down the tree to "currentversion" and lo, no profile list. Hmmm. Any suggestions as to what I can do now? I want to leave win8 on the machine.  I can probably rename a profile and change the password and just let the new user use it that way, but I'd prefer to do a proper job.

Edit:  Found it in Windows NT as opposed to Windows  8)
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Re: "profilelist" missing from Windows registry - now locked out....
« Reply #1 on: 01 September, 2018, 12:06:40 pm »
Hmm, well that didn't go so well. I removed the Profilelist key and subkeys, and restarted. Now I can't get into the machine at all. It still comes up with my username, but when I put in the password it of course fails, as I've removed the profile.....  So I'm stuck at the moment. Any suggestions as to how to proceed? :-\
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Re: "profilelist" missing from Windows registry - now locked out....
« Reply #2 on: 01 September, 2018, 12:20:38 pm »
Well, I restarted the machine and pressed F12 - Boot Options (I think thats what it said) and it got me into the reset menu, which let me do a system restore (I had at least set a restore point!). So I'm back where I started, with the old user profiles on. I'll have lunch and see what else I can find to do :-). I'm not sure if I can rename a profile, but we'll see.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Afasoas

Re: "profilelist" missing from Windows registry - now locked out....
« Reply #3 on: 01 September, 2018, 04:14:32 pm »
Is it possible the key used to activate the Windows 8 install is BIOS embedded?
If so, you should be able to re-install Windows 8 and not worry about activation - if you get the OEM installation media at least.

Personally before selling a machine, I would dban the hard disk drive and install afresh.