User Profile Folder - Change User Account Folder Name

Hi,

Thanks for your very detailed description, I used to change my folder name in Windows 10.

I replaced my HP Envy 17 with Toshiba Satellite P70 laptop and as the chipset was Intel's HM86 instead of HM87, was able to put my SSD from HP into P70, driver updates were done automatically, but my folder name was still HP, now it's Toshiba and no loss of data or anything.

Credits to you.

Cheerz :)

I waited a few weeks to see if you would report any problems.

After that wait I unfortunatley changed the old name to the new name as per your post and assumed that you had had no problems.

Do you have any step by step details of what you did to get out of the problem and make windows update work again?


Regards.

Hi,

I'm bit of a daredevil when it comes to my laptop, but I'm not stupid.

My Windows 10 Pro C:\ partition is basically a OS partition with my most used and trusted programs. I've been using Symantec Ghost 11.5.1 from DOS for probably 20+ years now and it's never let me down yet.

You see, I create GHOST .GHO image files, a 1:1 identical image of that partition, you can't just copy your files. I have image files coming out of my a$$ at various stages of install, like BARE (after all drivers working), EARLY (100% trusted programs working) and maybe CURRENT (shortcuts to other partitions).

You see, I worked out years ago that all of my documents, pictures, email contacts and messages, DATA files etc. had to be off my C:\ (OS partition) and be on another partition like D:\ drive which I called DATA, that way I don't have to copy all of my docs etc. before using GHOST to restore an image file to C:\, my OS partition.

Anyway, back to this thread.

I followed the instructions in post #1 and I changed my User Profile Folder Name and all was well, but then I thought about changing ALL references to my old name in the registry using Registrar Registry Manager, great program and my laptop wouldn't boot into Win 10 Pro, came up with error.

OK, restored GHOST image file to my SSD C:\ partition and in about 30 minutes, back in my desktop ready to try again.

This time I used Registrar Registry Manager and just searched for DATA MATCHES IN VALUES and changed old name to new user name.

Booted to my desktop but found that many things wouldn't work, couldn't connect to internet + others.

So my suggestion is if you want to change your user name, DO IT but STOP THERE, one wrong change in registry and that's it and you may not be able to get back to desktop.

With the last attempt where I lost internet connection etc., I created a backup of registry entries before I changed the name, I exported that file back into registry, rebooted and all was well.

Cheerz :)

Crumbleey said:

I waited a few weeks to see if you would report any problems.

After that wait I unfortunatley changed the old name to the new name as per your post and assumed that you had had no problems.

Do you have any step by step details of what you did to get out of the problem and make windows update work again?


Regards.

Hi Kenmar,

I think that I am in your stupid category.

I took your post as red and changed all the old username to new username and now I can't get it to find any updates.

I'm normally extremely cautious about messing with the registry, but on this occasion I was too trusting.

OK, after going through the pain of creating a temporary administrator and following the tutorial there were old bits of the old username needing some applications to be reinstalled.

After your mass change in the registry, there were still bits of the old username in there.

My considered solution:-

Re-install Windows 7, a clean install using the correct administrator name. That's what I am doing now.

If you can't do a clean install then you will need to follow the excellent tutorial and put up with the occasional appearance of the old user name in file paths etc.

I should have done a clean install of Windows 7 a month ago.

Hindsight has 20 20 vision.

Hi,

Personally, I'd probably bite the bullet and do a clean install of Windows 10 Pro 64bit with Classic Shell 4.2.5 to give you the Windows 7 look and start menu.

I had a brand new Toshiba Satellite 17.3" and went for a clean Win10P install to get rid of the Toshiba bloatware, but could install specific Toshiba software I wanted by downloading from their site.

Check if your laptop is compatible with Windows 10 and if the software you want is available.

I was impressed with the Win10P install, a couple device drivers weren't initially installed, but when I checked back later that day, windows update had located those drivers and installed automatically.

Cheerz :)

The name account in "Users" is different from the one used to log in, i don't know who this error was created. can this steps help to fix that?. For example i have an app called WinFix and i cannot use the automatic fix it offers for different problems because it says "Could not find file C:\Users\Charlie\AppData\Local\IconCache.db" and when i went to verify there the problem is that the folder name inside Users is called differently.