I need to rename user folder to agree with user name

I have 5 computers which are serially named. I recently decided to do the same with my primary user names on each computer. So, I went through and did some renaming. I found I had problem when I could not log on using remote desktop because my credentials were not accepted due to user name conflict. I eventually got this sorted out on most of the computers by changing names back, but now I have one left where the user account name I want to use is different than the folder name that is associated with that user. I would like to get everything back in sync. I've read a number of discussions about how to do this, but I'm not sure of the best approach. I have several options:
1. Change the user name to agree with the folder name.
2. Change the folder name to agree with the user name.
3. Create a new user name and copy the files from the existing user folder to the new user folder.
4. Reinstall Windows taking care to get the names the way I want.

My impression is that 2 is problematic. If so, which of the others might be the best choice? I also be interested in hearing why this long standing problem has not been fixed, if anyone knows.

The actual C:\users\(your user name) is set when you first create the account. After that if you change the username its displayed almost everywhere as the one you changed it to but the original folder name won't change. I'm sure there is a reason for that but I don't know what it is. Probably because there are so many references to it in the registry etc that changing it in every location without breaking something would be problematic. Installed programs may reference it to so you'd end up with programs that wouldn't work after renaming the actual folder. for that reasone I wouldn't be all that keen to try option 2. I'd go with 3 or 4, probably in that order.

I finally wound up following these instructions:

User Profile Folder - Change User Account Folder Name

Seems like it worked.

Hopefully it worked and you don't end up with any issues.

alphanumeric said:

Hopefully it worked and you don't end up with any issues.

Thanks for your help. Worst case, I'd have to reinstall Windows, which is a bit of a pain, but not the end of the world.

Atom said:

alphanumeric said:

Hopefully it worked and you don't end up with any issues.

Thanks for your help. Worst case, I'd have to reinstall Windows, which is a bit of a pain, but not the end of the world.

All you had to do was create a New User with the name you wanted to use then move, Copy, the Doc and settings over from the original. Once that is done you could delete the original user account.

edwar said:

Atom said:

alphanumeric said:

Hopefully it worked and you don't end up with any issues.

Thanks for your help. Worst case, I'd have to reinstall Windows, which is a bit of a pain, but not the end of the world.

All you had to do was create a New User with the name you wanted to use then move, Copy, the Doc and settings over from the original. Once that is done you could delete the original user account.

The user name I wanted to use already existed, but it did not match the name on the associated user folder, so I was just trying to change the name on the user folder to match the name of the user associated with that folder.