User account lost - Possibly corrupt? Lost installed programs

So in short - my problem is that my user account became invalid and my computer won't let me access my installed programs. Here are the full details:

My computer is a homemade machine. I don't remember the exact stats, but I do have an NVIDIA GTX 670 (pertinent later).

Here is what happened:

6:30 pm, used my computer to access a Skydrive file and get some info. Shut down the computer and left for practice.

10:30 pm, back from practice turn on machine receive generic error about "inability to access account". I don't remember what it said exactly. Note - I did NOT change anything, I did not install anything new, and no updates were installed.

Computer starts creating a new default "Name" account. For reference, my settings use a grey background. The default setting was a purple background.

I have seen this before and with a restart, it works just fine, so I shut off my computer (admittedly while it was installing apps).

Turn the machine back on, and the computer gets stuck flickering between a purple start up screen and the purple log in screen. I cannot interact much with the computer.

If I Ctrl Alt Delete, the screen stops flickering. If I log out of the Name account, no flicker. But it can't load the Name account. I assume this has something to do with rebooting while it was installing apps. But, I also look up online and see it might be an issue with the NVIDIA card.

Boot into safe mode - no problems. Safe mode with network - no problems. Disable NVIDIA driver and use generic driver - Flickering unless I hit Ctrl Alt Delete and log out. Okay - it seems like there is an issue with my account. Again - probably because something didn't finish installing. However, I am still not able to access my MS account. It continues to load the purple background and not download my personalized settings.

In safe mode with internet, I run the user account diagnostic tool. IT tells me that I need to have a Microsoft online account and reports some errors with that. Which, I would like to add - this is supposed to be connected to a MS account.

I do find that at least in safe mode (since I can't interact in normal mode), my "Name" account is using "Users/TEMP", instead of Users/Name.

Poking around online I decide to create a new temp account and log in with that. I am able to log in appropriately (out of safe mode) to the desktop. Okay - so it is not a driver issue. Based on advice from forums I see, I decide to delete the "Name" account connected to my MS account and then Add a new user. (I did copy the Users/Name directory and also said to "Keep Files" when deleting the account.)

I add a new user with my MS email address . I log in with this account, and it pulls in my settings (grey background, appropriate desktop image, etc). However, I have lost all of my installed programs and all of my customizations for the desktop and launch bar. Check, and it is using the Users/email001 folder. I copy the contents from users/Name to users/email001. My desktop contents come back, and one installed program comes back to my start menu. The other installed programs (including Office) do NOT come back and my launch bar does not update.

Also, when I restart my computer, I used to have it automatically log into my "Name" account with the password. Now it says "that password is invalid" and shows a log in for "Other user". If I click for other accounts, I can see the email account and log into that one.

So - what I WANT to do is get my account back with my installed programs so that I don't have to reinstall everything. My guesses are as follows:

- I am assuming that programs are not showing up because they were installed under "Name" and will only show up for the user "Name". I have checked the drives, and the files are there for my installed programs.

- My assumed approach is that I need to create a "Name" account, not connect it to my email account right away

- Delete my email account

- Connect my "Name" account to my MS email.

Does this sound like the appropriate course of action? Is there some registry magic I need to do, or should do instead? Basically - I just want my account back and don't want to have to reinstall and recustomize everything.

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