Re: Renaming a user's home folder

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Rich Pasco wrote:
In Windows, it's easy to rename a user (change a user's user name)
at Control Panel / Users / Properties / General. However, this does
not rename their home folder (the subfolder of Documents and Settings).
Is there a way to do that, without breaking all the system references?

- Rich


The user profile folders (C:\Documents and Settings\Username)
_cannot_ be renamed, without unnecessarily risky registry editing, even if the associated user account has been.

So, your best (and by far, the easiest) course of action would be to log on using the built-in Administrator account, create a new user account, with the username desired. Once you've logged in using this new account (and transfered any data you need to preserve, you can then delete the old user account(s).

HOW TO Create and Configure User Accounts in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;279783

How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811151


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