how to change user name in c:/Users/User ?

Topic

New Reply

The person selling this laptop installed a fresh windows with the user name “User”.
I changed my name to kris in my account – that didn’t do it.
A google idea said run netplwiz, changed it there, rebooted – that didn’t do it.

local account (not Microsoft account).

ideas? Obviously not a killer but I would have to change some bat’s that I use.

Thanks!

- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 22H2(current, 1 mo behind)(WuMgr). HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.

Reply | Quote

Replies

Can you not just create a new account?

Honestly, it’s good practice to run your day-to-day operations on a non-admin account anyway, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to create a new user account to use as your main account and keep the existing (presumably admin) account as your admin account.

1 user thanked author for this post.

krism

Reply | Quote

yes, that is a common saw, however I always run solely as admin – vastly simplifies things for me.

- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 22H2(current, 1 mo behind)(WuMgr). HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.

Reply | Quote

Well, there should be nothing stopping you from creating a new user account and changing it to an admin account (click on the account and ‘Change account type’) and using that. You should then be able to delete the first admin account from your new admin account.

1 user thanked author for this post.

krism

Reply | Quote

I believe that would entail re-installing everything on my computer.

- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 22H2(current, 1 mo behind)(WuMgr). HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.

Reply | Quote

Fair enough! 🙂 I assumed that you hadn’t installed anything since it sounded like it was a new computer to you. This would have been the simplest way to do it had you not done so, but if you have a lot of programs installed you may not want to do this, obviously.

I note, upon refreshing the page, that joep517 has just posted a link explaining the method I was about to advise, so I won’t repeat him. I will add, though, do make sure you create an image before you follow the advice in his link, as I’ve encountered people trying to change profile names manually having problems before (Windows doesn’t expect it, and some programs may have to be reinstalled). It should work fine, though, so don’t be afraid to give it a go.

1 user thanked author for this post.

krism

Reply | Quote

See How to Rename User Profile Folder in Windows 10 (windowsloop.com)

--Joe

1 user thanked author for this post.

krism

Reply | Quote

Joe, If you read the comments you will see that when you try to rename it, while in the “temp” account, you get a message saying folder or file in use… I rebooted to be sure and only logged into “temp”, but still no go.

@sky, yep, I Macrium imaged before doing that. 🙂

@sky, yes, I thought about that when I first got it but I didn’t think an answer would be forthcoming, and, indeed it hasn’t! 🙂

- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 22H2(current, 1 mo behind)(WuMgr). HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.

Reply | Quote

A few stabs in the dark:

1: Step ‘1.2 Rename Old User Account’ might be activating the account you’re trying to change somehow, although I assume that you’re skipping that step anyway since you already renamed it. If you’re not, though, maybe follow the steps but leave this step until after the registry edit?

2: Does the profile that you’re changing the name of have a password? Having a password might prevent it automatically using things.

3: Can you follow the tutorial in safe mode?

I do wonder if there’s just something preventing this from working on the original admin account, though.

1 user thanked author for this post.

krism

Reply | Quote

I tried to outsmart it by changing the file name via live linux, but it did the first time, but not the subsequent 2.

Again I tried to outsmart it by changing the registry and then hitting the power button but it still goes to shutdown.

I can’t remember if I tried it w/o trying to change the already changed name – I’ll go do that. Already restored ssd twice, more can’t hurt! 🙂

- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 22H2(current, 1 mo behind)(WuMgr). HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.

Reply | Quote

Well, I created the temp user, shutdown, booted into temp, and tried to change it but no go.

If you think about it, the new user is coming up with everything I have installed already, and many of those things touch/use my old account, so there is no way of doing this except on a clean system, and maybe not then. If I could do the registry change, pull the plug on the computer (which you can’t on a laptop(internal battery), and then somehow manage to change it externally (I thought linux might but it didn’t), I could maybe do it. There is still a question as to whether that would be bootable.

Done for now unless I get new ideas. Thanks all!

I’ll learn to live with “User” and hope I don’t inadvertently erase everything with one of my “clean” bats!

- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 22H2(current, 1 mo behind)(WuMgr). HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.

Reply | Quote

I can’t spot the real difference, but I know lots of people have had success with the steps in this TenForums.com tutorial:

How to Change the Name of a User Profile Folder in Windows 10

(It does rename the profile registry key before renaming the folder.)

Windows 11 Pro version 22H2 build 22621.2361 + Microsoft 365 + Edge

1 user thanked author for this post.

krism

Reply | Quote

something awaiting mod…
–
What I did was:
(create temp (admin) )
(backup)(again)
sign off and sign in to temp.
regedit – make that change.
Shutdown.
Now at this point when I powered on it logged straight in to temp because I had not put a password on it.
I successfully changed c:/Users/User to c:/Users/kris <— WHY WAS I ABLE TO???????
Shutdown.
On restart it booted right in to temp. I checked and kris/admin was there but logon was not offering it to me???, so I added a password to temp.
Shutdown.
On boot it now presented me with a logon screen with both temp and kris, so logged in to kris. All seemed well. Gave me no nasty messages like it had in the past. I started FF but noticed that, though I still had my 150 or so tabs, extensions were not functioning, though they were there, and did not show up in FF’s top bar. I went to FF/tools/add-ons and flipped the little switch off by each extension, and then flipped it back on. Stopped FF. Started FF and all seems well. I have no idea what that was about. FF may have been too smart for its own good and noticed the change. Dunno.

So at the moment, It seems fixed and good.
I have no idea why/what fixed it.
Who cares!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂

Big thanks for staying with me on this!!!!!!

- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 22H2(current, 1 mo behind)(WuMgr). HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.

Reply | Quote

Could you be overthinking this? Installed programs should be available to all users except for minor easily rectified issues. Create your user account and see how it works. If not to your liking delete it.

Reply | Quote

Sadly, while it looks pretty, it does not work – specifically, if you try to uninstall something it looks for info in the old address location. no way to change that. I’m back to before.

- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 22H2(current, 1 mo behind)(WuMgr). HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.

Reply | Quote

[doriel]

Im thinking about fiddlin with %username% system variable, but I think you should copy your current userfolder first. Then change the variable under second admin and.. Try to log with previous account and delete the original folder? I am really not sure how to do that.

Anyway.. Lot happened in this topic, so I dont know if you seek for the answer still.

BTW its possible to move some folders like this: Link here

To make the move, open C:\Users, double-click your user profile folder, and then right-click any of the default subfolders there and click Properties.

On the Location tab, click Move, and then select the new location for that folder. (If you enter a path that doesn’t exist, Windows will offer to create it for you.)

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

• This reply was modified 2 years, 4 months ago by doriel. Reason: link to different issue :) :)

Reply | Quote

ref your link, I have most of my stuff, including Documents(and drivers, and apps, and tools, and info, and some games), on a different partition – easy to carry from build to build. And then since I did a lot of work with my cell phones in the past, I have another partition for that. Big games and other stuff are in another partition on an external ssd. etc!

But, no, wasted enough time with this. I will remain content to be “User” forever with this laptop. That’s fine. The problem is finding out a few days/weeks/months later that it didn’t work and having to re-do all that.

- Thinkpad P15s Gen1 20T4-002KUS, i7-10510U, UEFI/GPT, 16GB, Sammy 500GB M.2.
others...
- Win 11 22H2(current, 1 mo behind)(WuMgr). HP laserjets M254dw & P1606dn, Epson 2480 scanner. External monitor Dell s3221QS for old games.

Reply | Quote