Forum Discussion
User account settings changed unexpectedly
My Windows user account settings, including my desktop background, theme colors, and privacy options, keep changing back to default on their own. This happens after every restart, even though I'v...
Go to Settings → System → About, and check the 'Device specifications' → there's no direct temp-profile indicator here, so instead check: sign out, sign back in, and look at your desktop icons/files.
If anything you saved to the desktop before is missing after restart, or File Explorer shows your username folder as 'TEMP' or similar when you type %userprofile% into the address bar, you're loading a temporary profile — this is the single most common cause of settings resetting on every restart, not just personalization.
This happens when Windows fails to load your real profile (often due to corruption) and creates a fresh temp one each session.