Error: The User Profile Service service failed the sign-in, when logging in to Windows 10

Hi Jay,

Thank you for writing to Microsoft Community Forums.

I understand that you are facing issues with booting to Windows, as it gives the error message “The User Profile Service service failed the Sign-in”

Let’s try changing some registry settings and see if we can fix the issue.

Before proceeding with the below steps, we need to enable the built-in administrator account by booting into Safe Mode. Kindly follow the steps mentioned below:

1. Boot the PC into Safe Mode with Command Prompt

2. Now on the command prompt window type in the following command and hit Enter:
   net user administrator password /active:yes

3. Restart the PC and follow the below steps.

Note: Important this section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs.

Refer the article to Create a system restore point.

1. Login to the built-in administrator account

2. Press Windows key + R. This will open Run. Alternatively, you can go to Start and search for ‘Run’.

3. In Run dialog box, type ‘regedit' and hit enter.

4. Now navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

5. In the navigation pane, locate the folder that begins with S-1-5 (SID key) followed by a long number.

6. Click each S-1-5 folder, locate the ProfileImagePath entry in the details pane, and then double-click to make sure that this is the user account profile that has the error.

7. If you have two folders starting with S-1-5 followed by some long numbers and one of them ended with .bak, you have to rename the .bak folder. To do this, follow these steps:

8. Right-click the folder without .bak, and then click Rename. Type .ba, and then press ENTER.

9. Right-click the folder that is named .bak, and then click Rename. Remove .bak at the end of the folder name, and then press ENTER.

10. Right-click the folder that is named .ba, and then click Rename. Change the .ba to .bak at the end of the folder name, and then press ENTER.

11. If you have only one folder starting with S-1-5 that is followed by long numbers and ends with .bak. Right-click the folder, and then click Rename. Remove .bak at the end of the folder name, and then press ENTER.

12. Click the folder without .bak in the details pane, double-click RefCount, type 0, and then click OK.

13. Click the folder without .bak, in the details pane, double-click State, type 0, and then click OK.

14. Close Registry Editor.

15. Restart the computer.

Let us know how it goes.

Regards,

Prakhar Khare

Microsoft Community – Moderator