[Workaround] Windows 10 build 20226 ‘We can’t sign in to your Account’ Error

Yesterday, we reported Micorosft is investigating the reports of logon issues faced by insiders running Windows 10 build 20226. Today the company has come up with a workaround to bypass the issue.

Here is what happened:

On September 30, Windows 10 insider build 20226 offered to the users in the dev channel. Few reported they were unable to logon to their user-profiles and received “We can’t sign in to your account ” error.

We can't sign in to your account message Windows 10

The only way to fix where Windows 10 logons you into a temporary profile with insufficient permissions or inadequate memory is to downgrade to the previous insider build 20221.

Meanwhile, Microsoft aware of the reports has today offered a workaround for the issue.

Workaround for Windows 10 build 20226 ‘We can’t sign in to your Account’ Error

If you’re affected and still on the latest insider build on the dev channel, do the following if you’re running the account as an administrator.

  1. Click on Start
  2. Search for command, right-click on the best result and select “Run as administrator”
  3. Run the bleow commands one line at a  time.
    cd c:users%username%
    takeown /F ntuser.dat*
    icacls ntuser.dat* /reset
    icacls ntuser.dat* /setowner "SYSTEM"
  4. Sign out

Expect the error message to not to appear when you sign in to Windows next time.

Follow the below steps if your account is not an administrator account

  1. Open a command prompt
  2. Echo %username%. Take note of username.
  3. Close the command prompt window
  4. Open a command prompt with admin privileges and run the following commands one at a time
  • cd c:usersusername
  • takeown /F ntuser.dat*
  • icacls ntuser.dat* /reset
  • icacls ntuser.dat* /setowner "SYSTEM"

5. Sign out and sign in back again.

If the workaround doesn’t help, you’ve to downgrade to previous insider build. Microsoft confirms they’ve found the root cause for the issue and fix is under development.

You running Windows 10 build 20226 affected with user profile logon issue? Has the above workaround worked for you? Let us know in the comments below.

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Venkat Eswarlu

Venkat is an independent technology journalist and the founder of Techdows. He has been covering web browsers, Windows, and software news since 2009. His exclusive scoops on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge features have been cited by Forbes, TechCrunch, Wired, CNET, and other major publications.

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