Guest Rich Pasco Posted July 12, 2008 Posted July 12, 2008 In Windows, it's easy to rename a user (change a user's user name) at Control Panel / Users / Properties / General. However, this does not rename their home folder (the subfolder of Documents and Settings). Is there a way to do that, without breaking all the system references? - Rich
Guest Ramesh, MS-MVP Posted July 12, 2008 Posted July 12, 2008 Re: Renaming a user's home folder How to rename or move a User Profile folder?: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/userpath.htm -- Regards, Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User] The Winhelponline Blog: http://www.winhelponline.com/blog Windows® Troubleshooting: http://www.winhelponline.com "Rich Pasco" <richp1234@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:ejiPgl84IHA.5012@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl... > In Windows, it's easy to rename a user (change a user's user name) > at Control Panel / Users / Properties / General. However, this does > not rename their home folder (the subfolder of Documents and Settings). > Is there a way to do that, without breaking all the system references? > > - Rich
Guest Rich Pasco Posted July 12, 2008 Posted July 12, 2008 Re: Renaming a user's home folder Ramesh, MS-MVP wrote: > How to rename or move a User Profile folder?: > http://windowsxp.mvps.org/userpath.htm Perfect! Thanks! - Rich
Guest Anteaus Posted July 12, 2008 Posted July 12, 2008 Re: Renaming a user's home folder Quoting that page: "...This is because of the reason that there may be some absolute path references (to the old user profile folder) in the registry added by third-party software. Therefore, there may be a loss of functionality in the respective applications." I wouldn't advise this. A lot of programs (Including some Microsoft ones!!) make absolute references to profile contents. What then happens, if you rename the profile folder, is that you end-up with 'crosslinked' userprofiles, somewhat like crosslinked FAT clusters on a HD. The results can range from your data appearing to be duplicated under other useraccounts, to a major data loss from your profile when someone else's account is deleted. What is worse is that conventional backup procedures (which backup only your own profile-folder's contents) may not give any protection against this. "Rich Pasco" wrote: > Ramesh, MS-MVP wrote: > > > How to rename or move a User Profile folder?: > > http://windowsxp.mvps.org/userpath.htm > > Perfect! Thanks! > > - Rich >
Guest Bruce Chambers Posted July 12, 2008 Posted July 12, 2008 Re: Renaming a user's home folder Rich Pasco wrote: > In Windows, it's easy to rename a user (change a user's user name) > at Control Panel / Users / Properties / General. However, this does > not rename their home folder (the subfolder of Documents and Settings). > Is there a way to do that, without breaking all the system references? > > - Rich The user profile folders (C:\Documents and Settings\Username) _cannot_ be renamed, without unnecessarily risky registry editing, even if the associated user account has been. So, your best (and by far, the easiest) course of action would be to log on using the built-in Administrator account, create a new user account, with the username desired. Once you've logged in using this new account (and transfered any data you need to preserve, you can then delete the old user account(s). HOW TO Create and Configure User Accounts in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;279783 How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811151 -- Bruce Chambers Help us help you: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375 They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers. ~ Denis Diderot
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