Windows 7 login screen show only last user and "Other User" icons after profile problem

I recently had a profile problem with my Windows 7 PC. My original profile in the registry had ".bak" appended to it and a new profile was created. I was unable to login with the new profile. I fixed this immediate problem by logging on in safe mode. This enabled me to restore my original profile.

However, since that moment the login screen now operates differently. Instead of showing icons for all the users with accounts on the PC, it now only shows two icons. The first icon is the last user who logged on and the second icon always shows "Other User". I have tried several different solutions recommended by other people with similar problems, but none of them have fixed the problem. I think the person who started this thread has the same problem, but none of the proposed solutions helped him either.

Any help much appreciated.

Answer

I'm on a domain here, so I can't verify my ideas, but concerning the newest post in the thread you linked to, here is my thinking:

To display the user accounts and their profile images windows must scan the
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ subkeys of the registry. If there are some some half-broken entries left after your repair of the user account, Windows cannot reliably read that profile. Instead of just skipping the profile and displaying the rest, which would practically disable the half-broken profile, it goes into the alternate logon mode. That mode doesn't need to display all the icons and names, and allows you to enter any profile's username. One could say it's somewhat more "robust" in this respect.

So my suggestion is to go to the ProfileList\ in the Registry and look for broken, double or superflous entries and export-then-delete them. Don't try renaming them, because ALL the subkeys of this entry are scanned, regardless of the names.

This is also in line with Ibrahim77's solution oveer there which basically is: except for your Administrator account, delete all profiles, delete all ProfileList\ Subkeys, delete all Profile Folders and start anew.