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changing Username in XP Pro, any help?

S

SerialThriller

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
359
ok...I have Win XP Pro. I would liek to change the name of the folder under

Documents and Settings on two comps of mine which have only one user each. I have

changed the name in Start--->Control Panel--->User Accounts. Also i have changed

the name in Start--->Control Panel--->Administrative Tools--->Computer

Management---->Local Users and Groups---->Users.

But, still the name remains.

Any ideas on how to fix this
 
if you can't just go right in and change the name while you're logged in as the user, try changing the name of the folder while logged in as the local administrator. i have to do this when i back up my profile inside the documents and settings folder, works like a charm.
 
well, i am logged in as the admin, the problem is that the folders under the Documents and Settings are 'protected' and therefore windows gives an error msg when i would try to delete the folder or rename it.
 
the error msg is one of these "folder is a Windows system folder and cannot be deleted or renamed".

I did everything the article said, but, yet, the results are pretty much the same since it is a Windows System folder.

Basically i am just try to rename everything to a new username i chose. And it seems everything is renamed fine except this folder. I do think i changed it once before somehow, i just pray it wasn't by reinstalling.

Any ideas?
 
well, the quick and dirty solution in this case would be to log in as local admin, copy the folder or just the contents of the folder into another folder somewhere else, then delete the actual user account all together.

next, with the account deleted, delete the folder (which should go down with a hitch since the SID attached to the folder belonging to that user account should be gone))

finally, re-create the user account, and there should be a new folder in your documents and settings folder with the new user account's name. go ahead and copy all the contents of that old folder into the new one.

at this point you can log out of the administrator account, and log into the new user account. all your display settings, wall paper, screen saver, icon locations, everythign should be just like it was in the old user account profile so long as you copied ALL the contents over.

good luck!
 
Reboot using a CD and boot into recovery mode, or boot from the hard drive into recovery mode if it is installed to the hard drive (i386\winnt32 /cmdcons to install). Rename the folder.

Boot normally as an administrative user other than the one with the renamed account. Open regedit, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList key. Locate the key with a ProfileImagePath entry pointing at the old directory name, edit it to point at the new folder name.

Issue resolved.
 
nessus said:
Reboot using a CD and boot into recovery mode, or boot from the hard drive into recovery mode if it is installed to the hard drive (i386\winnt32 /cmdcons to install). Rename the folder.

Boot normally as an administrative user other than the one with the renamed account. Open regedit, go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList key. Locate the key with a ProfileImagePath entry pointing at the old directory name, edit it to point at the new folder name.

Issue resolved.
Click to expand...

Well, your suggestion was the most helpful. I didnt follow the beginning opf what you said, I only used the second paragraph. The results are good except for the fact that i lost a few things (desktop background, and a couple programs and some Windows settings i had changed earlier).

2 questions, what exactly do you mean in the first step?

And...would the few problems i had be fixed if i followed the first step?

How do i boot into recovery mode?
 
the NTUSER.DAT and ntuser.ini files have alot of that, and if you want the old settings to transfer. there's a ton of other things in your my documents, local settings, and aplication data folders for other programs/tool bars, not to mention your start menu. make sure all of the contents made it over.

my method is what i use whenever i need to add my machine to a domain and still want my local machine profile to exist when i log in to my domain account on that machine. it is simple and has never failed me.

to boot into recovery mode, aka the recovery console, boot from your xp cd and when you get to the setup screen asking you to hit enter to install windows or hir R to enter recovery console, hit R. then it will ask what install of windows you want to log in to and ask for the admin password. then you'll be at the command prompt and be able to rename the folder.
 
ah ty, so i guess my problem was that i didnt copy ALL of the files? tho i must say i thought i did.

Or, do you think i might have had a problem with the fact that i never used the recovery console and all the copying went fine?
 
well, when i use my method of just pushing all the contents back and forth, it never requireds a single registry edit or booting into the recovery console. however, when you boot into the recovery console all your NTFS permissions are ignored and you are acting as uber-user with access and controll over everything, and the big difference in that case is you are able to not move any files and just re-name the folder without getting the message about being a system folder in use.

if you want to make sure you moved all the files, make sure you have your hidden files made visable from your folder options menu, as well as making your system files visable. if you didn't do that already, they should all still be sitting in the folder.
 
seems like yur method is a little faster and easier buy the other guys method is more thuro and clean, but somewhat harder.
 
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