Misnamed Account folder in File Explorer

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New problem for me. I have a new Dell laptop. I set up the Admin account and added a user account, both local, each with a short but distinct name. I have done very little else with the machine besides choosing a different browser, installing Office 365, and installing Start-11 and Take Control.

The account names show fine in the W login screen, but in File Explorer, the admin account folder is named with the first 5 letters of my name. In addition, Desktop was missing from the subfolder list, but showed up in the account’s One Drive folder (I had earlier uninstalled OD). I dragged Desktop back to the local folder, and Custom the Office Templates folder and a Dell folder with a chatboat in it to the local documents folder and deleted the One Drive folder.

Where do I find the place to correct the misnamed admin account folder, or is it more complicated than that?

Thanks, as always.

 

 

 

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1) Did you by any chance put a space or special character in the name? Perhaps this causes your problem.
2) Right click the start button and choose Computer management.
Expand “Local Users and Groups” and click on Users
Double-click any user to bring up the properties popup dialog.
Under the General tab you can add a full name if you need to.
Under the Profile tab you can set the Profile path and Local path if you need to.
I have set none of those. Then again I used only simple 5 character long user names.
3) In Settings in System click About and then Advanced system settings on the right.
In the System Properties popup click Settings in the User Profiles box.
You can see the profiles stored on the computer.
You can delete the profiles of users you are not logged into and they will be recreated from scratch when that user logs in again. Profiles use <JUNCTION> to link directories from various places for the user. Use DIR /A to see them.
Naturally any settings and data will be lost so save what you want to keep before deleting any profile.
This applies to Windows 10. Under Windows 11 the settings will have moved around.

HP Compaq 6000 Pro SFF PC / Windows 10 Pro / 22H2
Intel®Core™2 “Wolfdale” E8400 3.0 GHz / 8.00 GB
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC / Windows 11 Pro / 23H2
Intel®Core™ “Coffee Lake” i3-8100 3.6 GHz / 16.00 GB

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Cthru wrote:

Where do I find the place to correct the misnamed admin account folder, or is it more complicated than that?

It’s not too complicated, but you will need to sign into a different admin account and edit a registry setting:

Change Name of User Profile Folder in Windows 11

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Thank you both. Since this is a Windows 11 help forum, I will not try to follow instructions for W10 with setting that have “moved around.” I’m here with enough problems already dealing with W11.

I’ll follow b’s advice at some point, but to me it’s a lot more complicated than to him or her. I’m barely familiar with using the command area, and going into the registry makes me very nervous. I had to look up three different pages from links in the page provided in the link to see what the instructions for various steps are, and choosing from the numerous options is also a bit confusing; I have home, not pro, but that only eliminates a couple. The intrusive, voyeur tracking geeks in the windowless rooms in Microsoft Castle Land (MCL, or is it NSA, Nefarious Snoopers of America?), deciding that I want my first 5 email letters on my account name in File Explorer instead of the account name I choose… What a world. I don’t recall seeing this mentioned before, but I haven’t been paying attention to W11 till now.

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