Updated to 1903 but 'user'.000 now created and holds all my user files

I created a new account as you said above, copied all my old user files (in the ".000" folder as above) into this new account, and well...not too good

I've had my PC running in this configuration for about 3 years and installed quite a number of programs, including all applicable updates, over that time. I guess you'd call me an advanced user, having been in this game for many years, and using my PC for non-professional audio production, video editing etc. With this, many of my programs have been specifically configured with various paths - that took months/years to fine-tune!! Before the 1903 update a couple of days ago, my PC was performing well. After this update well, not so good. My taskbar jumplists have disappeared, my (stardock) desktop fences have disappeared. Paths are wrong. Etc etc.

The 1903 update is not working for me and I'd suggest that the scope of this 'issue' extends down to even those who use their PC's for surfing only.

Update: I've managed to roll back to the version before 1903 and it was a painless and pretty fast process, so thanks due to MS for that. 

Anyway, thanks for your suggestions Dave.

Hi Arch

Honestly, I think the only way to resolve this mess created by Windows Updates, is to create a new user profile, move your data to that profile and delete the other profiles from netplwiz, there is going to be no other way at this point, since restarting did not fix this bug . . .

Cheers,

netplwiz returns 3 entries listed in the Users tab: my MS hotmail email, ASPNET, and HomeGroupUser$

Task Manager Users tab shows 1 entry - my MS hotmail email.

The MS hotmail email is the same one I use for my MS store log in.

I'm not sure which programs would use my old(correct) User name as part of a path, it's just the (reasonable?) possibility that some might?

Hi Arch

I am glad you have backed up your data just in case . . .

With this problem a lot of user copy their data into the temp profile and when that profile deletes itself all data is lost, that is why the best option is to create a new user profile

With that being said, form your detail, do you have applications that are hard coded to look in a specific user profile for data?

Click your Start Button, then just type netplwiz and hit Enter

How many user profiles are listed on the resulting dialog?

Thanks again Dave,

I'm very keen to get this resolved quickly!! - there's a bunch more programs with issues e.g. Outlook (I can't see any of my emails...including incoming!!). WHY, if the fix is to get the original User folder re-defaulted and re-populated, hasn't Microsoft pushed out a simple fix??? - it absolutely HAS to be simple since MS are asking users to do it manually. (many apologies to you - my frustration is directed to MS)

Anyway, back to your above reply...

In PowerShell, whoami returns:  "CorrectUsername\CorrectUsername"  --> i.e. I think things look ok here

PowerShell also defaulted to the following location: "C:\Users\CorrectUsername.000>" --> i.e. we're back to the temp ".000" as a path default

So I'm not sure what this means in regards to how best to fix this problem.

However, back to your second solution, where you say:

"Please open Windows File Explorer 

Navigate to C:\Users 

Do you see two user folders that look like yours? 

Open those folders and check inside Pictures, Documents . . . etc. and see if your files are there "

-->Yes, there are two folders that look like mine - the second(new) one has the ".000" appended, and, that second folder has all my User files. I have copied all these files elsewhere (to a non-C drive) in case this temp folder gets deleted soon. 

Can I ask if, as you then say, I create a new user profile (and copy my .000 files there) - will I then lose my old original user name and will this new name cause issues with the expected paths of some of my programs - if they're hard wired to include my old username in the path name?