Change the profile name of the (Administrator) user account... Anyone?

[Archimede]

I hope some of my Nsane resourceful friends can point me in the right direction.

 

I would like to change the (Administrator) user name on a laptop running Windows 7 Professional x64.

 

C:\Users\{username}  <<-- This name

 

Any suggestions to achieve the above -without having to reinstall the OS- are most welcome

 

I wish I did not need to do that, but it became a necessity... Please don't ask

 

I have considered Plan B (create another Admin account and then delete the old Admin account) but I realized that it would take me ages to transfer the countless customized system settings, registry tweaks, services, custom extension associations, permissions, etc. to the new user profile, so I went back to the original Plan A of renaming the account.

 

Hopefully someone will be able to recommend a special tool (not Windows Easy Transfer) or a powerful script that can help me to safely and easily resolve the issue.

 

Many thanks in advance for your valuable feedback

 

Edited May 1 by Archimede

[shwescorpion]

@Archimede

I assume you are the administrator on that laptop.

Go to control panel and follow below steps.

 

[Archimede]

@shwescorpion  Thanks dear, however the procedure you suggested only changes the login name of the user, what I need to do is to change the actual profile name of the Administrator (see below)

 

C:\Users\{username}  <<-- This name

 

Hopefully someone will be so kind to suggest a procedure to do that.

 

The laptop only has 1 user and it is the Administrator (me).

 

Perhaps the below example will clarify what I intend to do.

 

After changing the profile name from Archimede to shwescorpion:

 

C:\Users\Archimede\AppData\Local
C:\Users\Archimede\AppData\Roaming

 

This (below) would be the result:

 

C:\Users\shwescorpion\AppData\Local
C:\Users\shwescorpion\AppData\Roaming

 

Thanks

Edited May 1 by Archimede

[Mustang Sally]

i would create a new user and then delete the old one (backup the files you want to keep and when deleting say yes or no to deletion of all files) that was the easiest way for me. good luck

[Archimede]

@Mustang Sally

 

I have considered Plan B (create another Admin account and then delete the old Admin account) but I realized that it would take me ages to transfer the countless customized system settings, registry tweaks, services, custom extension associations, permissions, etc. to the new user profile, so I went back to the original Plan A of renaming the account.

[neofita]

Did you try to change RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization keys in following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

[Archimede]

@neofita  thanks for the suggestion, friend.

 

Sadly the changes did not produce any effect (even after logoff/reboot) and the below names remained unchanged

 

C:\Users\Archimede\AppData\Local
C:\Users\Archimede\AppData\Roaming

 

I am surprised that even googling produces little results... I can hardly believe to be the only one who wants to change the profile name of the (Administrator) user account

[Archimede]

Tomorrow I will test a couple of procedures found on Google and will be back here to report... Hopefully good news

 

 

Edited May 1 by Archimede
secpol.msc might not be the solution :(

[MrZeb]

Hi,

 

Using another account with Administrator privileges you can change the profile folder name and update the registry to point to the new profile path but this can give troubles because many programs store the user path on the registry and files!

 

The Profile path for the Administrator account is stored on the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-xxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxx-500

adjust the value of ProfileImagePath

 

After the change logoff and login with the old Administrator account and search the registry for references to the old path and update the entries to the new path.

 

Edited May 1 by MrZeb

[Archimede]

Hello again

 

I came across this: https://superuser.com/questions/1355431/how-to-change-username-user-folder-on-windows-7 and since it looked quite promising, I tested it (on the Windows 7 Professional 64-bit laptop).

 

I am happy to confirm that this procedure works FLAWLESSLY and it takes less than 5 minutes to execute.

 

To simplify the procedure, in the below step-by-step text (adapted from the superuser.com source), the old user name that needs to be changed is referred to as "OLD" and the new user name is referred to as "NEW".

1. In Control Panel change the user account name that needs to be changed from "OLD" to "NEW"
    
2. Now create a new account with administrator rights to execute the next steps (name this account "WHATEVER")

 

3. Now log off "NEW" and then log in "WHATEVER"

 

4. In Windows Explorer navigate to C:\users

 

5. Right click the folder named "OLD" and rename it to "NEW"

 

6. In regedit navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

 

7. Select the SID which on the right pane of the registry editor corresponds to ProfileImagePath registry value C:\Users\OLD  <<-- in my case it was the one before the last SID at the bottom

 

8. Edit the ProfileImagePath registry value (C:\Users\OLD) and rename it to C:\Users\NEW

 

9. Close regedit and reboot. There will be 2 users "NEW" and "WHATEVER" -->> log in "NEW"

 

10. Now delete the "WHATEVER" account and make sure to select "Delete files" and "Delete account"

 

11. Reboot the system and that's it, this is how to change the profile name of the (Administrator) user account.

 

IMPORTANT: Should the old username still be visible in Task Manager or in Advanced System Properties or in System Information, it means that the old username has not be entirely eradicated from the system.

 

To fix that, simply run netplwiz to rename this one last reference, which is not only cosmetic but (I found out) it prevents retaining certain configurations under the new username.

 

Now everything is absolutely spic-and-span  

 

Edited May 3 by Archimede
Added important final sentence (in blue)

[Archimede]

1 hour ago, MrZeb said:

this can give troubles because many programs store the user path on the registry and files

 

Hello friend

 

If the job is done properly and the original SID remains untouched, no trouble at all

 

However, missing a single passage of the step-by-step procedure posted above, will lead to massive headaches.

 

Against some expert's advice, I stubbornly did test a similar procedure a few months back and, believe you me, the outcome was catastrophic... Happily today the riddle has finally been solved

Edited May 1 by Archimede

[Archimede]

BTW, for those (less demanding) users who quickly want to migrate all their files and settings from one account to the other without renaming the original Admin's or the original user's profile folder, there's a freeware (User Profile Wizard v24.7 by ForensiT) that does the job very neatly, it's way better and more flexible than Windows Easy Transfer

[MrZeb]

20 hours ago, Archimede said:

 

Hello friend

 

If the job is done properly and the original SID remains untouched, no trouble at all

If you search the registry you will find several references to the old profile path, this can be less problematic if the Administrator account was disabled and not used to run other programs.

There are also some programs that store the path in a static form inside configuration files!

Edited May 2 by MrZeb

[Archimede]

@MrZeb Many thanks for your kind message, mate.

Yes, I did a little bit of manual "housekeeping" but nothing major.

Both in the registry and in the system partition there were a few orphaned references that lingered behind... A couple of minutes to clear all that.

The fact of using the same SID and renaming (rather than creating a new profile) makes everything a lot easier.

As a rule I keep 99% of programs on a separate partition, they are not installed, they run as portable (virtualized and most of them fully isolated from the host system) therefore fixing the proper path in a couple of config files for the 3 or 4 references leading to the previous profile name, was a breeze.

I will be keeping the current situation under control for a couple of days before committing the changes as permanent... Just in case

IMHO it's always advisable to carry out such operations in a virtual environment and imaging the system partition before touching anything "delicate" is something I learned the hard way, if you catch my drift

So far I am very pleased indeed with the outcome.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the other nsane friends who took the time to participate in this thread.

Wish you all a great weekend ahead

[Skunk1966]

it can also be easily accomplished using gpedit.msc:

 

[Archimede]

@Skunk1966  Thank you for joining the thread however please note that the procedure you suggested (via gpedit.msc) has a completely different scope and does not do what I need to do, which I believe it is clearly explained in the previous posts.

 

Have a nice weekend