User Account Name Chage

Gadgetman496

Windows 7 has the option like previous OS's to change a user accounts name.

For example, if you had one user account named Tom & you renamed it to Mary it will make the name change successfully. However, if you go to C:\Users the profile will still show as Tom & the newly name account Mary will not appear. The originally named Tom account profile will also have a little gold lock icon beside it's folders. Does this have any adverse effect on the renamed user account Mary?

yoyo

gadgetman496 wrote: »

Windows 7 has the option like previous OS's to change a user accounts name.

For example, if you had one user account named Tom & you renamed it to Mary it will make the name change successfully. However, if you go to C:\Users the profile will still show as Tom & the newly name account Mary will not appear. The originally named Tom account will also have a little gold lock icon beside it's folders. Does this have any adverse effect on the renamed user account Mary?

I think Windows will make a Mary_2 folder etc. in this case. The reason this folders name does not change after account rename is that it may break applications that reside or use app data folders under this account name I think

Nick

Gadgetman496

That would make some sense yoyo. For example, if you had Skype installed and somebody else used it to log into their Skye account on your machine, their Skype user name would remain in your Skpe login drop down box for ever more, there's no way through the Skype application itself to remove their user name from the drop down box list, you have to go to the Appdata\Skype folder & physically delete the Skype generated folder with their user name in order to remove their user name from the Skype log in drop down box list.

So what's with the little gold locks then? Even though they are there you still have access to the folders. I guess if Microsoft allow you to change the account name it won't have any adverse effects but it just doesn't look right.

I wonder what would happen in this case scenario?

Let's say you renamed the account back to the original name "Tom" & created a new second user account named "Mary", then you log in to the new "Mary" account to allow the profile folder structure to be created, that should remove the little gold lock icons from the "Tom" profile folders I'd imagine? Now let's say you then delete the original "Tom" user account, would all your original Prog installs such as Office, Updates & other Progs work in the newly created "Mary" account or would you have to go install & tweak them all again?

28064212

The lock simply means that the "User" group on that machine doesn't have read-access to the folder. For example, if you have the guest account on, a guest won't be able to access your files. It's nothing to worry about.

Here's a (greatly simplified) explanation. User Accounts in Windows have two 'name' attributes: a display name, and a reference name. The reference name doesn't ever change. The display name can. The reference name is what's used for naming the "C:\Users\name" folder, so it doesn't change. When you query the user account named Mary for its user folder, it returns "C:\Users\Tom\"

As to your final question, many applications will run (assuming Mary has the same user-level as Tom). However, you will lose all Tom's user data. So, for example, if you have custom styles set up in MSWord, or email accounts in Outlook, these will be gone. And some programs provide the option to only install for the current user, so those won't run.

What exactly are you trying to do? Or is this just curiosity?

Gadgetman496

28064212 wrote: »

What exactly are you trying to do? Or is this just curiosity?

What actually happened was the simplest of mistakes & me being me? I just don't like it when everything is not spot on

I built a brand new rig for a friend & installed Windows 7 Ultimate along with Office and a whole platter of Progs he wanted. Done all the updates and tweaks etc. Then I installed his new Webcam and logged into Skype using my Skype account to check the video & sound settings were all OK so as when he took it out of the box he was good to go. I then made an Acronis image of the finished system so as it would be easy to get back to where it was when he got it if it ever went tit$ up for any reason. Delighted with my many hours work I only just then noticed that there was a typo in his account username (I must have hit a second key or something silly when entering it but never spotted it) So I decided to rename his user account thinking nothing more of it, job done. Finally, I went to delete my Skype login folder from the Appdata\Skype profile & it was then I noticed the little gold locks and the fact that the username change had not changed the profile folders account name.

The machine appears to be working flawlessly & I certainly don't want to have to start all over again, I just wasn't sure if there would be any adverse effects if I left it as is.

28064212

Nah, that's fine. So long as your friend is aware of the difference between the folder name and the user name, it's grand.

Gadgetman496

Yep I think all I need to do now is tweak one entry in the registry so as the winver.exe will display the correct registered user & also change it in one of the Office programs so as the documents attributes will display the correct name.