Azure VM – Daily “Sign out / Cancel” Notification and Missing User Profile

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Azure VM – Daily “Sign out / Cancel” Notification and Missing User Profile

Dinesh Kumar Mathiyarasan 40

I am facing an issue whenever I log in to my Azure Windows VM. Every time I connect through RDP, I receive a notification with “Sign out” and “Cancel” options. I have been selecting Cancel and continuing my work, but the same notification appears every day, which is becoming frustrating.

Additionally, I noticed that my username/profile is not available under the C:\Users folder. I would like to understand whether these two issues are related to my Windows user profile, RDP session, temporary profile, or any Azure VM configuration.

Could someone please explain the possible root cause and suggest the appropriate troubleshooting steps to identify and resolve this issue?

Thanks!

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Answer 1

Hello Dinesh Kumar Mathiyarasan,

In the situation you described, the "Sign out / Cancel" message appearing every time you log into the Azure Windows VM via RDP, and the absence of your profile in C:\Users, indicates you are running with a temporary profile. When Windows cannot load or create a user profile correctly, it assigns a temporary profile, resulting in unsaved data and persistent logout messages.

The cause is often a faulty registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList where the account SID is corrupted or pointing to the wrong path. You need to check for any entries with .bak or invalid paths, and edit or delete them so that Windows can recreate the correct profile. Additionally, confirm that the VM is not affected by any policies or scripts in Azure affecting profile creation (e.g., custom extensions or domain GPOs).

To fix this, you should create a new local profile or delete the faulty entries in the ProfileList, then log back in so Windows can rebuild the folder in C:\Users. If the VM belongs to a domain, make sure the account has permission to create the profile and is not experiencing roaming profile misconfiguration. Once the profile is properly restored, the “Sign out” message will disappear and you will see the user folder appear normally.

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Thank you,

HL.