TechTips - Windows 7 Easy File Transfer Tool Error "You Are Currently Logged on Using a Temporary Profile"

I was trying to use the Windows 7 easy file transfer tool and kept getting an error message saying that I was logged on as a temporary profile. It was very strange because I knew the profile was not a temporary profile, I use it every day and never had a problem with the profile. Well what I found was in the registry there can be a problem with other profiles being used as temporary, and this can affect the Windows 7 Easy File Transfer Tool. It's a very weird bug but luckily it's pretty easy to fix. In this guide I will explain what is causing the problem and how to fix it.

If you are getting an error with the Windows 7 Easy File Transfer Tool every time you try to use it and it looks like this:

"You're currently logged on Using a Temporary Profile. Restart your computer and try again."

Then what is probably happening is there is a profile (not necessarily the one you are using) that has been corrupted and needs to be fixed in the registry before you can use the Windows 7 Easy File Transfer Tool.

First we will have to find the profile that is corrupt in the registry and fix it there, to do this follow these steps:

Click Start

Click Search Bar

Type Regedit (You should make a backup of your Registry before you edit it)

Hit Enter

Navigate to this key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList)

Click the SID that ends in .BAK (mine was S-1-5-21-3676333592-1006736145-1283606961-686161.BAK)

Click ProfileImagePath (this is the user account with the problem, mine was TEST, write this down you will need it in a minute)

Right Click the SID

Click Delete

Close the Registry

Now we need to go to the Users folder and change the folder of the account that we just deleted from the registry. This will allow us to log back on to this account and fix our problem.

Double Click My Computer

Double Click C:\ Drive (The drive you have Windows installed on)

Double Click Users Folder

Right Click on the TEST folder (This folder will be the one we saw in the ProfileImagePath, mine was TEST)

Click Rename (name it something like TEST.OLD)

Logon as the user (TEST in my case)

Logoff the account

This should create a new folder called TEST (or whatever your account was named), now if the data is important then you should copy it from the old folder (TEST.OLD) to the new TEST user folder. If the data isn't important (like in my case TEST doesn't matter to me) then you can just ignore the account. Now you should be able to log back into your original account and run the Windows 7 Easy File Transfer Tool without any problems.

Well I hope this guide helps you to get your Windows 7 Easy File Transfer Tool working properly.