Vista group policy crap

[Matt²]

So today I got a vista laptop that had a problem when you tried to log in : instead of loading to the desktop, it gives an error "Group Policy Client Service Failed" "Login cancelled"..

.. and I can find NO evidence of any known good fixes on Google. (KHAN!) .. my instincts told me (correctly) that the profile was corrupt, so I made a new profile and copied files over to the new one.. but (looks at Patrthom's direction) I'm sure there may or may not have been a more easier way to fix this?

I did run Malwarebytes and it found some remnants of the PAV virus, but it was not running, though I think it damaged that profile.. comments?

 

[PatrThom]

Only thing that pops into my head is that the laptop was part of a domain...a domain with Group Policy Objects which can no longer be fetched or something, causing it to fail. Either that, or the service responsible for applying GPOs is corrupted.

--Patrick

 

[Matt²]

nope, regular home use laptop on Comcast, not part of any domain.. Well the short and skinny that fixed it - make a new profile, move stuff over, delete old.
But I do want to find out how to properly fix this (at least not as bad as my friend, who used to format the whole drive and reinstall windows when something similar would happen!!) though it's not as drastic as Windows 98/XP problems used to be long ago. I know Vista / 7 occasionally has issues with profiles going corrupt, and I feel I need to find a: the cause and b: the solution.