My installation of Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit) has recently dropped access to all of the profiles other than the main administrator profile. Additionally, if I try creating a new profile, the new profile does not appear either. All the profiles do appear in the Control Panel; they just don't appear as options when I turn on the computer. I have already tried to edit the registery, editing the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList to include one of the missing accounts and setting the value to 1 (as I found in a different thread - http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/20461921-6c80-4c09-8f38-c6c02d0dc58b). It didn't work. Any suggestions? What do I try next?Fred

It possible to prevent access to and hide or disable a user account in Windows 7. For example, from the Logon screens, Parental Controls, UAC, User Accounts, etc... To unhide the user accounts try the following steps: Method 1: Through Local Users and Groups Manager 1. Open the Local Users and Groups manager. 2. In the left pane click on the Users folder. 3. In the middle pane, right click on the user account's name that you want to hide or unhide and click Properties. NOTE: The accounts with the arrow pointing down in the user icon are hidden. The ones without a arrow are unhidden. 4. To Unhide a User Account A) Uncheck the Account is disabled box. 5. Click on OK. 6. Close the Local Users and Groups manager window. 7. Restart the computer. Method 2: Manually Through Registry Editor 1. Open the Start Menu, then type regedit in the search box and press Enter. 2. If prompted by UAC, then click on the Yes . 3. In regedit, navigate to the location below. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon 4. In the left pane, right click on Winlogon and click on New and Key. 5. Type SpecialAccounts and press Enter. 6. In the left pane, right click on SpecialAccounts and click on New and Key. 7. Type UserList and press Enter. 8. In right pane of UserList, right click on a empty area and click on New and DWORD (32bit) Value. 9. Type in the name of the user account that you want to hide and press Enter. NOTE: For example: My user account name is Everyday Account. 10. In the right Pane, right click on the user account name and click on Modify. NOTE: For example: My user account name is Everyday Account. 11. To Unhide the User Account A) Type 1 and click on OK. NOTE: You can also delete the Special Accounts key from step 7 above to unhide it. 12. Close regedit. <If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Propose as Answer" If you find it helpful , mark it as helpful by clicking on "Vote as Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster> Thameem

Thank you for the reply, but I'm not sure how closely you read my original post. First, I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium. Option 1 is not available for Windows 7 Home Premium. The computer says to use User Accounts in the Control Panel. I already did so, and the Accounts are normal there. Second, as I said in the post, I already used regedit to create the key the way you specified. That didn't work. So, I'm looking for other things to try.Fred

I was playing around with the system, trying various things. I clicked on the strange new icon that appeared on the log in page called "Other Accounts." I never saw this before, but assumed that it was related to the fact that there was now only one account. I was wrong. The other accounts/profiles/whatever did not disappear from the system. Instead, the behaviour of the log in screen has changed. Now, the choices are between the last account/profile accessed, and "Other Accounts." If Other Accounts is selected, than a user name and password can be entered. Then you can access the other account. Basically, Windows 7 Home is acting a lot more like Windows 7 Professional. Strange. I recently upped the protection level of McAffee. Could that have something to do with it? I have to say that this new behavior confused the heck out of me (B.S. - Computer Science as well as Microsoft certifications and other degrees) and my wife (Ph.D. - Mathematics). I can deal with the new behavior, but it's made life interesting here. Thanks for trying.Fred