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Whenever I try to launch a site in the 4.0 App Pool shuts down immediately (if it ever started) an leaves an event in the event log:

Windows cannot find the local profile and is logging you on with a temporary profile. Changes you make to this profile will be lost when you log off. The user specified is IIS APPPOOL\DefaultAppPool

followed by another event log entry Windows cannot log you on because your profile cannot be loaded. Check that you are connected to the network, and that your network is functioning correctly.

This machine is running Win 7 Ultimate

If the error is actually what is indicated in the event log, how can I reset the app pool users?

Dennis Burton
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  • Changing to a different identity keeps the app pools running. I would still like to know how to reset the profiles that the app pool is intended to run under – Dennis Burton May 12 '11 at 17:14

3 Answers3

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I just ran into this after upgrading my Win7 Ultimate x64 machine to SP1. The aforementioned message was found in the Application event log. It was accompanied by its good friend, "Application pool 'DefaultAppPool' is being automatically disabled due to a series of failures in the process(es) serving that application pool." in the System event log.

I changed the advanced setting of the app pool, "Load User Profile" from True to False and my app pool is running again using the configured identity (which, in my case is a domain account).

Paul Prewett
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  • yeah switching identities is what worked for me as well. I seems like a slimy solution where I still don't understand how the default app pool is working – Dennis Burton Jul 16 '11 at 22:24
  • Thanks!! I was strugging for so many days... But does this setting have any side effect?? – PawanS Jul 05 '12 at 07:01
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    What this setting does is, if set to true, will use the configured user's temp directory to store files, which is inherently more secure since you could configure each app pool to use a different identity, thereby ensuring that one did not have access to data from another. So the side effect is that all app pools will use the same temp directory if set to false (C:\Windows\Temp), just like w/ IIS6. [Reference](http://preview.tinyurl.com/7ryp69j) – Paul Prewett Jul 06 '12 at 12:38
  • I'm getting into the same problem. However if I change the Load user profile to false, I can start again my app pool. Still if I run unit tests or restart the PC, this setting in IIS is switched back automatically on true. Any idea on how to solve this? Thanks – MaiOM Dec 30 '13 at 14:14
  • @MaiOM, IIS settings aren't in the habit of changing themselves. There must be something that's changing them. See this post (http://forums.iis.net/t/1195261.aspx) and enable IIS logging to track down what is changing that setting back for you. – Paul Prewett Dec 31 '13 at 15:05
  • Good comment from @PaulPrewett regarding the temp directory when changing this setting. – Phil Cooper Feb 24 '16 at 15:57
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I had this problem on Windows 10, following an upgrade from Windows 8. The problem was I had a corrupt Default profile. (This can apparently occur when upgrading to Windows 10.)

When logging in for the first time with a new user, the Default profile is copied to create the profile for the new user. If it's corrupt, this can cause the login to fail for the new user.

This worked for me on Windows 10:

  • Take a zip of C:\Users\Default from a Windows 10 installation that doesn't have this problem
  • Rename C:\Users\Default on the Windows 10 install that is having problems, to Default.Old
  • Unzip the non-corrupt Default profile into C:\Users

Now try again with Load User Profile set to True. It should work.

ngm
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In my case, Windows 10 version 1909, IIS 10, app pool running under domain account, app pool's "Load User Profile" or "Rapid-Fail Protection" settings had no effect on the issue.

When I deleted both application and it's app pool from IIS, recreated them, issue got resolved. New app pool does have Load User Profile set to true just like it was before.

joym8
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