Changing a user’s account name in Windows is a straightforward, easy to achieve task. The problem that many users experience after changing the name is that the name of the profile folder is not changed during the process. Say you have a user account Martin and a user profile folder under c:\users\Martin. If you change the account name from Martin to Bob, you will see Bob during login. The user folder under c:\users is however still named Martin and not Bob.
So what can you do if you want to change bot the account user name and the folder name of the user profile?
Here is a step by step guide on how to change a user’s name and profile folder name under Windows 7. Please note that the old user name will still be used by some Windows Tools, permissions come to mind.
It is recommended to create a backup or at least a system restore point before you start the process, as it requires some basic Registry hacking.
You can use a program like System Restore Manager to create a new system restore point, or one of the backup software programs in our overview for the backup.
You will also lose your current theme which you should backup as well if you want to continue using it.
New Admin account
You need to create a new administrator account to execute all the commands. You cannot use the account that you want to change the user name for. If you only have one account you need to create on first that you can delete again after you have made all the changes. If you have a secondary standard account you can temporarily promote the account to administrator for the process.
Click on Start, then Control Panel. Select Add or Remove user accounts from the options and click the Create a new account link. Name the account and switch to Administrator before you click on Create Account.
Renaming the user account
While we are at it; You can now change the visible user name of the user account that you want to change the name for. Click the Change your account name link in the user account view if you are logged into the account you want to change the name for.
If not click on manage another account, select it from the list and then pick the Change the account name option.
You can now log out of the current account. We have created a second administrator account and changed the visual name of the user account. Log into the admin account that you have just created or promoted afterwards.
Renaming the user folder
Open Windows Explorer or another file browser and open the users folder that you want to rename on the main drive. The folder is usually located under c:\users. Locate the folder of the profile that you want to rename, right-click it and select Rename from the options. Enter the new name and press enter after you are finished. You may see an UAC prompt that you need to accept.
The user folder has been renamed, but you need to edit the Registry setting as well as the old folder path is still stored in the Registry. You would get profile not found errors if you would now try to log into the old user account.
Editing the Registry
Open the Windows Registry editor with the shortcut Windows-r, then regedit and the enter key.
Navigate to the following Registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
You find several S-1-5-xx folders in there. You need to click on each folder until you find the the ProfileImagePath folder with the data set to the profile path of the old username, e.g. c:\Users\Martin.
You may want to use the search (by pressing f3) if you find many Registry sub folders there.
Double-click the ProfileImagePath name and enter the path to the new user folder into the form, e.g. c:\Users\Bob
You can now log out of the admin account and log in to the original user account. You will notice that the account name is now displaying the new name. Once logged in you will also notice that the folder under Users is now showing the new folder name that you have selected.
And that’s basically how you change both the account user name and the user folder on Windows 7.
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Martin, Nice tips thanks for sharing. BTW possible to use this trick on Windows XP?
I only tested this on Windows 7, not sure if it works under Windows XP as well. You could try this method, maybe it works
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/userpath.htm
Nice little hack. Never actually had to implement this, but definitely good to know.
Using this method is not safe. You may experience some problems with programs that use old path for user folder (e.g. WinRAR). I recommend you to search the registry keys of such programs and edit them manually.
Good tip. It should however be quite easy to resolve those errors. You may want to search for c:\users\username in the Registry and correct all program paths that point to the old folder.
Changing names on XP accounts is easy under computer management. When Vista and 7 came out, everything changed–a real mess. Say I set up a computer which will later be sold; what to name the account? I found even copying profiles to be somewhat of a natural disaster. Will definitely have to try this on a trial machine. Thanks!
And what about this article you published a while ago?
http://www.ghacks.net/2010/04/23/windows-user-profile-relocator/
The software has not been updated in a year but should work nevertheless as well. I do prefer making important changes manually instead of relying on a software though. But it is another option, right.
Not impressed: I know you are working in a second language, and I know that Windows is a mess, but you must work hard on achieving some kind of clarity in your writing,
Ed you are an idiot.For a guy who is using English as a second language Mr. Brinkman probably uses it better than a lot of native born speakers.
Please call me Martin ;)
I’m running into a problem when I rename the folder. Upon renaming, I’ll get a prompt confirming that I want to use my administrative rights, but then I receive an error that “The action can’t be completed because the folder or a file in it is open in another program…”. Unless I’m missing something, I’m logged into the new administrator, and all other users are logged out, so I can’t tell what could be using the folder. Any insight?
Have you closed programs that may use data in that folder? Web browsers for instance?
Try booting in safemode F8 then rename
This article Martin Brinkmann has written is the most informative I have seen on this subject. Many other articles have claimed it can not be done. and the only option one has is to create a new profile and then transfer files and setting over to the newly created profile from the old one. Martin Brinkmann shows us in this article how to actually change the name of both the user account and the profile folder.
I thank him for sharing this with us. I intend to follow this method tomorrow.
By the way, I don’t know what the heck your own problem is ED but this is a fine article so if you feel otherwise then write a better one or just keep quiet. (I was going to say just SHUT UP but figured it might be a little harsh.)
Thanks Martin. Your article was of great help. I cross-checked your suggestions with: http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/show/2236 . I then felt confident enough to give it a try. And it worked.