The Owner Account Is Displayed As "Account Unknown" in Profiles on Windows XP Home Edition-Based Computers (312131)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
This article was previously published under Q312131

SYMPTOMS

The Owner account may not be removed correctly when you run Setup on computers that are running Windows XP Home Edition. The Owner account is displayed as "Account Unknown" when you view profiles on the computer. Also, the Owner folder is not removed because the profile is not removed. Note that other problems occur if an Owner account is used or created during the remainder of setup or Out of Box Experience (OOBE).

CAUSE

This problem occurs because the OOBE code does not delete the Owner account during Setup.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows XP. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

322389 How to Obtain the Latest Windows XP Service Pack

The English-language version of this fix should have the following file attributes or later: 
   Date          Time  Version      Size     File name     
   ------------------------------------------------------
   12-Dec-2001  18:54  5.1.2600.22  532,992  Msobmain.dll
   19-Oct-2001  10:20               169,576  Msobshel.htm

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first corrected in Windows XP Service Pack 1.

MORE INFORMATION

When you run Sysprep, the Sysprep process creates a new site for the existing user account. This is not a problem; however, a program may use the existing Security Identifiers (SIDs) as a key to encrypt and decrypt data (such as the Protected Storage service). After the SID changes during Sysprep, the SIDs are not correct.

This problem does not occur on Microsoft Windows XP Professional-based computers because the Administrator account is used during Setup. This problem also does not occur on Windows XP Home Edition-based computers if you do not use the Owner name as the default user. The OOBE deletes the Owner account before completing the procedure after you install the fix from this article.

NOTE: Existing data in the Owner folder from the Owner and the Administrator is copied to the Default User folder before it is deleted.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:9/26/2005
Keywords:kbHotfixServer kbQFE kbbug kbenv kbfix kbsetup kbWinXPsp1fix KB312131
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