Saved settings will not load after deleting folder from "documents & settings"

[Mediokrates]

hi all,
located in my "documents & settings" were various files. one was my login(followedbyvariousnumber/letters). I never liked the name of the folder as the name took up so much room in any pathway list, since it is associated with all my personal files added programs and preferences.
while logged in the Administrator profile, I renamed this folder, removing the extraneous letters/numbers. i believe i restarted the computer and successfully logged into my normal profile.
i then deleted the folder with the word Administrator in its name from "docs & settings". then everything went wrong. i couldn't enter the Administrator profile, and had lost ALL my saved preferences in my normal profile.
I've managed to recover the deleted folder and restore it, and can login to Administrator. but in my normal user profile, my computer is really slow, despite running only 75% of the normal programs, and none of the saved settings and preferences and add-ons will load or work properly.
any ideas how to restore my normal user profile (has admin rights) saved settings?
this all occured while cleaning a major infection, so my system restore was/is disabled.

i am running windows xp, sp3

 

[LookinAround]

Deleted the Administrator folder? Ouch! Glad you recover Admin

As for user proflles see if this helps

/* EDIT */
Actually, do you have your XP install disks? As you might be best to also run a "repair" install to try and assure XP looks for/fixes anything needed you might have missed when repairing by hand

 

[Mediokrates]

i'll see if i have them around.
i actually used a similar technique to renable the saved settings for the Admininstrator login, to allow me to recover the deleted folder from the Recycle Bin, by copying the AllUsers.Windows profile, and renaming it temporarily as Administrator. At which point I restored the original Administrator file to its position.
As I said this allowed the Admin profile to load, but will not load my normal login's settings.
I do think that maybe i missed something or included something I shouldn't have in the copy. the problem is I had to copy everything, as one of the problems is that I cannot change some settings. one of those being I cannot enable the show hidden files option. I can choose and apply, but nothing happens, and when I reopen the window, it has reverted.
If anyone knows: I would like to know, if 2 admin accounts exist on a computer, with a disabled guest account, how many profile folders will be found under "documents & settings?"

I was reading up on your suggestion, and read an alternate method of transferring profile information. this was through the properties and advanced settings options under My Computer. when i open that window, it gives me 2 profiles, the Administrator, and my normal login, with the option to delete.

if my normal login is an administrator profile, why do I need the default Administrator profile. can this be removed at all, and can it be removed from this window. i ask, because in the control panel, user profiles, it only displays my normal login, and the disabled guest, not the default admin. this all started because i was trying to make it so only 1 admin user profile exists on the computer, not important, but just something i was trying.

what i am curious about is this: right now every program i have acts like it isn't really installed. they work, sort of, but want to start their installers upon starting up. will either method copying the profile settings, manually or through the My Computer option fix the settings, or will I have to go through the installer for each of these programs when i set up the new user profile?
thanks

 

[LookinAround]

Each user account name exists under Document and Settings
>> One userid per folder name plus
>> One for Administrator plus
>> All Users and Default User and Guest and
>> Local Service and Network Service


I'm not saying this is the definitive list. So ASK first f you should see anything else before you delete its folder!

 

[Mediokrates]

ok, i have:
AllUser.Windows
UserID
Administrator.USERID.LAP_TOP
UserId.USERID.LAP_TOP
now some of that makes sense. would that correspond with your list as: 3,1,2,4. or am I missing something?

 

[Bobbye]

Are you getting any error ,messages that make you think you need to delete some files and/or folders?

Or are you just going through the system looking for things to remove?

Did you attempt a System Restore- it didn't sound like it.