Can you transfer between accounts on the same PC?

[WilleyOne]

Is it possible to transfer desktop folders and files between two accounts on the same PC? When I tried searching through google, it kept showing me how to transfer between two PC's. I have an account that seems to be beyond repair in Windows 7 as far as administrator behavior, and program errors...

 

[Barman58]

Yes this can be done but you will need to be in an admin account to gain access.

If you have a corrupt account you need to create a new admin level account and copy the entire contents of the old users\username folder into the users\username of the new account.

This should transfer all files and most program settings to the new account.

once you have the new account up and running you can delete the old account but I would advise that you take the option to save the files which will place a folder on the new user desktop containing the user files from the old user

 

[WilleyOne]

Thanks for your quick response, I appreciate it... Looks like this is going to be quite the task...

 

[Barman58]

As with any thing of this nature i would also advise that you take a backup of all essential personal files to an external disk or dvd if possible, before you start, just to be sure

 

[WilleyOne]

I imagine I won't be able to copy and paste between two accounts... So I guess I will have to put the files on an external drive, then open and paste them where I want them under the new admin account?

 

[Darryl Licht]

As Barman said as long as you are an admin, yes you can cut and paste to move, or copy and paste to copy.

Just open up your C:\ drive, navigate to the Users folder and move/copy using any method you want!

 

[Barman58]

Once you have the new account in place you should be able to copy and past or cut and paste from the old to the new as long as you are logged on to the new account.

You may get a prompt from the UAC asking you to confirm that you wish to access the folder tree of the old user , it may even be useful to set UAC to it's lowest setting to stop prompts.

 

[WilleyOne]

OK - awesome... That will save a ton of time. Thanks so much for your help, Barman & Darryl. My current account just went corrupt when I tried loading my music into Windows Media Center... It got do the point where I needed administrator approval to move something to the recycle bin, and I was in the administrator account... Any ideas on why an account would just crash like that?