How to resolve Event ID 1511 – Windows cannot find the local profile, on Windows Server 2008

For some reason lately, we’ ve been seeing a number of cases where User Profiles in Windows Server 2008 (seems to be mostly R2 but may be from SP1 of Windows Server 2008 as well) experiences cases where users cannot create local profiles. I’ve seen this on a dedicated Terminal Server and also on SharePoint Server 2010 boxes (particularly application pool accounts that aren’t local administrators, and shouldn’t be).

If you are experiencing the problem:

Event ID 1511 – Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off.

And/or, with these accounts, you see “Please wait for the User Profile Service…” and it just never comes…

You may want to try:

SharePoint 2010 Approach

• Disable IISAdmin Service (so that the application pools do not lock the profiles on boot, so we can delete the temporary folders)
• Open Regedit and delete the profile folders related to the accounts in question (see this article for details: http://www.bauer-power.net/2010/03/temporary-profile-loaded-on-windows.html – note the one’s I deleted did not have .bak on them)
• Go to C:Users and delete the related Temporary folders created for the application account profiles (might be in a TEMP or temp.domain, etc. format). Note, you may even just boot in Safe Mode just to get under it

Or Use the User Profiles Option in System

• Add your application pool accounts to the local administrators group (keep your pants on, this is temporary, just long enough to create the profiles)
• As referenced here (http://todd-carter.com/post/2010/05/03/Give-your-Application-Pool-Accounts-A-Profile.aspx, a great/handy post), create profiles for your application pool accounts:

  runas /u:domainapplication_pool_account /profile cmd

• Provide the password for the account when prompted
• Remove the application pool accounts from the local administrators group (see, I told you it would all be alright…)
• Enable IISAdmin Service
• Reboot

General Windows Server Approach (Non-SharePoint)

• Open Regedit and delete the profile folders related to the accounts in question (see this article for details: http://www.bauer-power.net/2010/03/temporary-profile-loaded-on-windows.html – note the one’s I deleted did not have .bak on them)
• Go to C:Users and delete the related Temporary folders created for the application account profiles (might be in a TEMP or temp.domain, etc. format). Note, you may even just boot in Safe Mode just to get under it

Or Use the User Profiles Option in System

• If necessary, give your account the necessary rights to successfully create itself (make it a temporary administrator, revoke when done)
• As referenced here (http://www.todd-carter.com/post/2010/05/03/give-your-application-pool-accounts-a-profile/, a great/handy post), create profiles for your account(s):

  runas /u:domainapplication_pool_account /profile cmd

• Provide the password for the account when prompted
• Remove the accounts from the local administrators group
• Reboot