Magento: Incorrect template design for login and register page due to Persistent Shopping Cart

Problem:

I am using Magento 1.6 and my login and register page design has problem. It is not taking the template path from my custom theme. Instead, it is taking the template path from base persistent folder.

For example, the login template path is taken from
frontend/base/default/template/persistent/customer/form/login.phtml

instead of
frontend/default/MY_THEME/template/customer/form/login.phtml

It’s strange how this persistent folder come into action.

Cause:

This problem occured because Magento has added a new feature called Persistent Shopping Cart from Magento Enterprise 1.11 and Community 1.6.

The persistent behavior feature reduces consumer frustration when they try to access their shopping cart from multiple browser sessions. This feature also enables merchants to provide promotion, according to pre-defined segmentation rules, encouraging consumers to add items to the shopping cart and complete their purchase.

Solution:

There are different solutions.

1) You can copy the persistent folder from design base directory to your custom theme directory. And then modify the design on the files you copied.

2) You may like to disable the persistent shopping cart feature. You can do this from :
System -> Configuration -> CUSTOMERS -> Persistent Shopping Cart -> General Options -> Enable Persistence = No

3) If #2 doesn’t work then you can directly disable the module by editing the file: app/etc/modules/Mage_Persistent.xml by setting active = false.

Hope this helps. Thanks.