I helped a user upgrade his XP machine to Windows 7. The first thing I did was to save his files on an external hard drive using Windows Easy Transfer. When I ran the Windows Easy Transfer Wizard, I got this message: “You’re currently logged on using a temporary profile. Restart your computer and try again.” I knew that I did not log on using a temporary profile, but I followed the instruction to restart the computer anyways. After the computer booted up, I ran the Wizard again. Same problem. I switched from a network account to a local account. The error still remained.

I then searched for a solution and found that the error message was misleading. The error message really meant that there was a temporary profile on the computer. Thus, I used the registry editor to delete the temporary profile registry, and I was able to to run Windows Easy Transfer Wizard.

Here are the steps to delete the temporary profile registry on a Windows XP machine:

1. Click on Start and then Run … .
2. Enter regedit in the dialog and click on OK.
   
3. Browse to this key: \HKEY_LOCAL\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
4. Look for any entry with .bak extension.
   
5. Right click on the .bak entry and delete it