Problems logging into desktop, after logging into new laptop

Hi All,

My desktop (running insider preview 16257) was working fine up until yesterday. Then I got a new laptop and proceeded to set it up, including logging in with my MS account. This is the first time I've logged into two machines with the same MS account. Prior to this I always just used a regular local windows account.

Now when i try to log in on my desktop with my Microsoft account, it's pretty much unusable. A weird variety of problems occur.
If i open task manager, it looks like it's showing me the cpu/mem etc usage at the moment I opened task manager, but it does not update. And it does not show me the percentage of usage for each process.

I can't restart the computer. It just sits there apparently doing nothing.

If i try to open a browser window, i get the 'shell' of the window but nothing is in it and it never loads. Same thing happens with most apps - it either wont start, or it starts up and loads up an empty window that never populates.

And this is all tied to my account. Because if i log into my desktop with a local windows account, it works fine. In fact i am logged into it right now typing this. Everything works normally when I am logged in with the local account.

I can only assume this has something to do with my logging in on the new laptop, since it's the first time I've logged into a 2nd machine with that account. Too much of a coincidence for this problem, tied specifically to my account, to happen right after I do that.

Does anyone have any ideas whats going wrong here and how to fix it?

Laptop was running windows 10 home - i upgraded it to windows 10 pro. It's NOT running an insider build. Desktop is running insider pro 16257

I would try turning off settings synchronization. Just search for sync and "Sync you settings" should be at the top of the list. Open that and turn off synchronization. That may not repair your damaged user account on your desktop - you might have start over with a new local account and then change it to the Microsoft Account, but turning off sync may keep it from happening again.

Good idea, but too late. When I logged in with the local account, there was a new build of windows waiting to be downloaded and installed. So i figured I might as well let it do that and maybe it would repair whatever was wrong. And it seems as though that fixed it.