• Have you seen this? Win10 1803 error: “C:\…\systemprofile\Desktop is not available” and an empty desktop

    Posted on May 21, 2018 at 20:26 CDT by • Comment in the Forums

    I’m seeing more and more reports of people who are upgrading to Win10 1803 and end up with an error message that dates back to 2009 or earlier: The message has changed a bit over the years. The latest version I’ve seen (warning, highly NSFW link) says:

    C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\Desktop refers to a location that is unavailable.If the location is on this PC, make sure that the device or drive is connected or the disc is inserted, then try again. If the location is on a network, make sure that you’re connected to the network or Internet, then try again. If the location still can’t be found, it might have been moved or deleted.

    Here’s one of several older versions:

    C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\Desktop refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on this computer, or on a network. Check to make sure that the disk is properly inserted, or that you are connected to the Internet or your network, and then try again. If it still cannot be located, the information might have been moved to a different location.

    Which is all rot, of course.

    When the machine comes back up, the screen’s black — no Start menu, no desktop, no apps, no restore points, no nothing. And all of the usual advice for bringing your system back doesn’t seem to work.

    If you find yourself facing a dead desktop and a bunch of bafflegab about unavailable locations, please drop a note here. We’ll see if we can grab a log file or two to help narrow down the problem.

    Thx, Susan Bradley, Patch Lady

    Windows News
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