AppProfileSafe - Support Portal

Restore: Profile Reset

The user's Windows profile is corrupted or needs to be reset. The machine itself is not rebuilt — only the user profile is deleted and recreated. Machine-level settings remain intact and typically do not need to be re-imported.


Procedure

StepActionDetails
1Export user profile (if possible)If the user can still log in, run a final user-level export to capture the latest state. If the profile is too corrupted, use the last successful backup from the scheduled export job.
2Delete the user profileRemove via System Properties → Advanced → User Profiles → Delete, or delete the profile folder and its registry entry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.
3User logs inWindows creates a fresh default profile. Applications run their first-launch routines and create default configuration.
4Import user settingsUse the delayed import approach — wait for first-launch routines to complete, then import.

Import Command

No mapping file is needed — same machine, same username, same drive letters.

:: Run after first-launch routines complete (2+ minutes after logon)
AppProfileSafe.CLI.exe --import ^
  --manifestFile "\\server\backups\%COMPUTERNAME%\%USERNAME%\Manifest.xml" ^
  --apps "Firefox-User,Office-User,Chrome-User" ^
  --unc-credential-store --silentMode --ignoreRestorePointLimit

What About Machine Settings?

A profile reset only affects the user's profile folder and HKCU registry hive. Machine-level settings (HKLM, ProgramData, ProgramFiles) are not affected and do not need to be re-imported.

Exception: If the user's profile corruption also caused changes to machine-level configuration (rare), re-run the machine import as well.

Partial Profile Corruption

If only specific applications are affected (e.g. only Outlook's profile is corrupted), you can import selectively:

:: Restore only Outlook user settings
AppProfileSafe.CLI.exe --import ^
  --manifestFile "\\server\backups\%COMPUTERNAME%\%USERNAME%\Manifest.xml" ^
  --apps "Outlook-User" ^
  --unc-credential-store --silentMode --ignoreRestorePointLimit

Use --apps to target only the affected applications. Unaffected applications keep their current settings.

See Also