Windows Vista resets user profile/account settings issue

I've been having this strange problem - Windows Vista resets my profile (user account) to factory settings. This means all my installed programs, settings, desktop, documents simply disappear! The problem seems to happen seemingly randomly whenever I restart my system and I suspect that windows creates a backup of the user profile to install some updates or something and never restores that backed up profile. This means that the documents and settings are still there its just the registry settings, that store the profile information, have got messed up. Below is the solution in case any of you guys encounter this problem -

1. Go to your registry (Start -> Run -> regedit)

2. You will see a treeview on the left side. Expand the following nodes - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

3. Under ProfileList you should see a list of keys with names like S-1-5-18 and S-1-5-21-516313125-3752655690-3918728212-1000 etc. These are the keys that contain your profile information. Below is a screenshot from my registry -

4. Look for a key that has ".bak" at the end of its name. This should be your original profile. Make sure that the ProfileImagePath on the right hand side is pointing to "C:\Users\[your computer name]". Below is a screenshot of how the whole thing looks on my system -

5. Look for another key with the same name but without ".bak" at the end of its name. This is a temporary profile, you'd notice that the ProfileImagePath on the right hand side is pointing to "C:\Users\TEMP.[your computer name]". Below is a screenshot of how the whole thing looks on my system -

6. Rename the temp key (from step 5) to ".bak1" or something and rename actual key (from step 4) to what the temp key was (i.e., remove the ".bak" part)

7. Restart and you should get all your documents/settings/programs back.

(Note: If the problem persists, then undo the changes and contact the system admin. Also, as a disclaimer, I don't represent Microsoft and my advice is as-is)