Creating User Accounts in XP

[#1]

HI There,
I have a few thoughts on this:
Firstly have you tried loggin in with one of the new accounts when in safe mode?
If you decide you have no other option but a reinstall, try a repair first....
I use XP Pro so you might not have some of these:-
Right click on My Computer and Select Properties / Advanced Tab / User Profiles Section Press Settings. What do you have in the list? do all the other accounts look different from the main one that works?
Do you have any errors / warnings in the event log straight after you attempt to log in with another account? that might give us some more ideas.
(Right click My Computer / Manage /under the event viewer section)

[#2]

Also, you haven't deleted the "Default User profile." folder out of the documents and settings folder have you? (its a hidden folder) This folder is copied to create the new profiles.
If you look in Documents and Settings do you see new folders for your new accounts?

[#3]

Quote from: Vip3r

Firstly have you tried loggin in with one of the new accounts when in safe mode?

No answer to my earlier question on that.....

Quote from: HPsauce

What is the behaviour in Safe Mode?

[#4]

OK, a few answers. 
1. Sorry that I did not respond to the question about Safe Mode.  I get exactly the same behaviour in Safe Mode
2. The User Profile Settings are all there and seem perfectly normal to me, as far as I can tell.  No obvious abnomalies
3. In the event viewer, there are again no surprises with one exception.  Whenever I log on, I do get the following regularly
"Error SideBySide Event 59".  I have googled for that without any success although it seems innocuous for some reports
4. On Documents and Settings, all the User Accounts are listed, including the Default, Administrator, Main (mine), All Users, Guest and Visitor
It is bizarre.  The only other symptom is that I have discovered that if I create a new account (Visitor) WITH administrator rights, I can in fact log ion to it.  But as soon as I change it to LIMITED rights, the same behaviour pattern repeats itself - logging on, logging off, savings settings,Log In - without actually loading anything.
A further clue is that if I do NOT share the 😧 partition with other users, it makes no difference.  When I log on with Visitor (with administrator rights of course), I can still see the 😧 partition and all my files.  So sharing restrictions do not seem to work.
Furthermore,  the facility to make folders private is ALWYS greyed out, including in Safe Mode, and so I cannot make folders private.  Equally, there is no Security tab for any of my folders, not even in Safe Mode.
Does any of this throw any further light on the problem please ?  I am grateful to everyone for their contribution.
 

[#5]

OK well the fact that you can login with an account that has administrator rights, points to a permissions problem somewhere, whether on the folders or in the registry.
You say you can't see the security Tab, can you confirm what file system you have the drive formatted with? is it Fat32 or NTFS?
File/folder security is only available if you have it formatted as NTFS.
Also are you running Service pack 3 with all the latest windows updates?

[#6]

First, I am using Service Pack 3 on XP Home.  I discovered that the Home version does not have security tabs enabled except in Safe Mode.  But I found that I could download Security Configuration Manager Tool from Microsoft (SCESP4I.EXE) which has now enabled them.  Bit I also learnt that Simple File Sharing is not available with the Home version at all.  I am using NTFS.
Looking at the security tab, I do not really understand how they apply, because most of the "Allow" boxes are greyed out ! Ugh !  However, the security tabs probably have nothing to do with the Log-in problem with limited rights.
I have found a work around for the inability to make folders private due to the Simple File Sharing lack of functionality with the Home edition.  I have set my personal folder's attributes in CMD to hidden.  So at least in Visitor profile the folder cannot be seen.  But anyone could change the attributes because Administrator rights cannot be denied in the Visitor profile !
Does any of this help point to the underlying problem ?