User Account name help

kenenfuego · 28 Nov 2009

Hopefully this is the right spot for this. I did look already to see if it was already addressed but couldn't find anything. I apologize if it is and I missed it.

Anyway, I bought a computer that already had Windows 7 pre-installed on it. They had created a user account with the name 'majik'. I changed it to my name, but the 'majik' still shows up in different places. For example, my music files are in C:/Users/majik/Music

I want to get rid of majik, and have it replaced with my user account name. Maybe I'm completely missing an easy way to do this, but any help would be appreciated. I've already changed the user account name to my name and restarted computer, but it still hasn't changed anything.

Thanks for the help!

nate42nd · 28 Nov 2009

Here is my best guess. See if anyone else agrees. I had this same problem on an XP machine once.

Right click "My computer" and left click "properties" go to "advanced" and "user profiles" highlight and delete the user you want to go away. I would wait for a second opinion though, I'm not quite sure. I suppose you could try it, but be sure you want to delete the user's files. This type of thing can have "far-reaching" effects. Be sure "system restore" is on before you try this.

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Also, welcome to the forums

Brink · 28 Nov 2009

Hello Ken, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Unfortunately, the only way to change the name of the C:\Users\(user-name) folder is to create a new administrator account, copy the contents of the old account's user folders into the corresponding new account's user folders, then delete the old account from within the new account.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

nate42nd · 28 Nov 2009

Brink said:

Hello Ken, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Unfortunately, the only way to change the name of the C:\Users\(user-name) folder is to create a new administrator account, copy the contents of the old account's user folders into the corresponding new account's user folders, then delete the old account from within the new account.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Would you do this from within the "user account" screenshot I have there Brink?

(Use the "copy to" option?) or just simply copy the files?

Also, it has to be a NEW admin account? You cannot use an existing one?

MacGyvr · 28 Nov 2009

You don't need to be in the profile management screen. You create a new user from user accounts in control panel. The trick is that you can't be logged in as either your new permanent user account, or the old messed up account when you do it, so you need a third admin account to do the operation.

So I would create two new accounts. One will be the permanent account you are going to use. One would be the admin account to perform the change.

Log in as each of the accounts once so the folders get created. Then while logged in as the "temporary" admin, copy the files from the messed up account to your new permanent account.

Once that is done, you can log in as your new permanent user and delete both the old messed up account and the temporary admin account. Or you could leave that admin account for problems such as this.

When you delete the accounts, be sure to let it delete the files associated IF you are sure you copied everything you need.

Brink · 28 Nov 2009

Nate,

I could never get the copy to work for anything other than for the "Default Profile" which would not work for this. Instead I find it easier to copy and paste the files directly from the user folder themselves to the corresponding new account's user folders. It does not copy the user profile, but it will copy of the personal user files and some of the settings from the old user account.

If you have another administrator account (not the built-in Administrator account) you can copy them over to it instead of creating a new one.