I recently decided to go back to Windows Vista after testing the Windows 7 Beta. Before I rolled back to Windows Vista I made sure that I made backup discs with all my files, etc. Well....now that I am back to Windows Vista I tried to run the wizard to restore the files from the backup discs. I get an error saying "Missing User Account - the files you are restoring have security permissions for a user account which could not be found on this computer. The missing user account is shown below. user name-PC\HomeUsers. Please use the control panel to create a user account with the same name. The security permissions on these files will be reassigned to that user account." Well unfortunately for me I tried to change the user account to the one specified but apparently in Windows Vista you cannot include special characters such as "-" or "\" in the user names. So I am not able to restore my files. I have tried to select the box that says "Restore the files without reassigning security permissions" but that does not work. At this point the only alternative is to go through each disc and move the files manually which would be a huge inconvenience. Anybody know of anyway to get around this?

The user name part is the machine name. Looks like you had a different machine name for Windows7 and that is what is causing confusion. You could rename the machine to what it was in Windows7 when you took the backup, but there might be other implications of changing machine name. So don't do it if it is not required.If you try "Restore the files without reassigning security permissions." it should work. What is not working after you select this option? Could you collect the restore logs under %windir%\Logs\WindowsBackup\*.etl when this error occurs and send it across to sriramb-nospam@microsoft.com (remove -nospam from the ID to get the correct one)?Thanks,Sriram [MSFT]

Thanks for trying out our backup and restore application.Our application supports restore ofUserdataeven ifthat user does not exist on a remote machine, it gets created under the Users folder and data is restored in that folder.On Vista machine you can just click the checkbox"Restore the files without reassigning security permissions" and then continue.If the pop up comes again, you will notice that:The missing user account is shown below changes from :<machinename>\User-123 to <machinename>\None_plocJust check the checkbox this time and continue. It should work.Try this, if this does not work please write back to me at nehaa_at_microsoft_com(Remove the underscores and replace the words with symbols wherever applicable). Or you can use the same thread to post your experience.As per special characters beign allowed in User name "-" is allowed in bothWin7 and Vista and "\" is not allowed in either of them.Thanks,Neha

Hello,I have just noticed this thread and was hoping someone would be able to point me in the right direction. I had a similar issue, where I continued with the restore despite the original username not being recognised. The restore completed successfully into another file location but I have one question - do I need to install all my original programs again? I have all my data it seems, but all my original programs - for example itunes, scribus etc, are not restored.I presumed everything would be back to its previous condition, such as desktop icons and background, installed programs. But I suppose this has to do with the original security settings not being met with regard to the username (Which I attempted to create but a) no special characters were allowed and b) the user account was too long for a user name to be created - i.e. JOHN-LAPTOP/John)I am not an expert so any help would be greatly appreciated.Thanks,Budd

Hi Budd,Thanks for trying out Windows Backup. I assume you have ascenario where you tookbackup on machine Ahaving some users which are notpresent on machine B.File restore will restore your userdata by creating the user names under <Systemdrives>\Users but will not create logical users. But file Restore is not supposed to restore applications to their earlier state. It restores data files/folders to previous states, no application specific data will be restored. Forthat recovery has to be done from the system image which depends on the fact that whtherSystem image was included in thebackup or not. Windows recommended options include System image in backup by default.In case you already have System image backup use "Recover System Settings for your computer" linkon Backup and Restore control panel. Follow the wizard and your system will be restore to a previous backup image. This will also include all installed apps on your machine.You can also go ahead and create an adhoc System image by using "Create a system image" link on left pane of the Backup and Restore control panel and henceforth use it.If you have any doubts on how to create or restore from system image, please get back to me.Thanks,Neha