SOLVED Profile disappeared after win 10 update (home version)

[SnowdogGirl]

I recently was downloading Canon camera software and after it failed a windows update took place. When i logged back in - the desktop shortcuts/folders/icons were missing as was everything in "My Documents". Finally found files under c:\users\name... (which was hidden) but the name is not correct. I'm logging in as 'first name ^ last name' but the user folder is 'first name' only. I'm familiar with regedit executable but don't know how to make changes. Worst of all I do not understand how this occurred as I've done nothing with user accounts. How can I make the c:\users\name as the login profile without disrupting anything else?

 

[Trouble]

Hello and welcome to the forum.
Have you ever done anything in the past to relocate (move) either your user profile or the contents of your user profile folder?

I'm logging in as 'first name ^ last name' but the user folder is 'first name' only

That is not unusual. Typically windows will use only the first five letters of your user name to construct the profile folder.
Especially if you are using a Microsoft account which includes your email address such as (e-mail address removed)


Take a moment to find out who you are.
Open a command prompt and type
whoami
hit enter
That should produce the machine name and profile name you are currently logged on as.

Then have a look at the contents of C:\ users
Typically, with only a single user it'll look something like this

Do you see any additional folder(s) that you suspect is being used currently to host your profile when you are logging on?

Do you receive any messages at login suggesting that your profile cannot be loaded?

 

[SnowdogGirl]

Thank you for the response. Whoami produces "Shel". My window login page shows "Shelley Van Hoy" and the users' directory shows user "Shelley".

I checked the properties for c:\users\shelley and found "Hidden" checked. I unchecked it and "My Documents" contents and "Desktop" contents all appeared. I have not logged off and back on to see if all appears as normal yet. Can you offer any explanation as to why this might have happened?

 

[Trouble]

Can you offer any explanation as to why this might have happened?

Nope. I've not seen it before, but....
I wouldn't hesitate to test and confirm that your change (unchecking "hidden") persists through multiple reboots both warm and cold.

Nice find by the way.
Setting the "hidden" attribute is usually done intentionally with purpose and fore-thought, however.....
It's possible, I guess, that some third party security suite or tweaking software might be responsible.
I've just never seen it before.