Windows 10: How can I change my user profile folder name?

Just got a new HP laptop with Win 11 home pre-installed. Before I had a Surface Pro 4. I bought a Seagate 2 TB drive for backup and file transfer. My Surface user profile name was JoeM c:\users\JoeM. When I set up the new laptop, Windows automatically set my user profile name to the first 5 letters of my email...captj...so now it says c:\users\captj. I didn't catch that and when I went to restore my Surface files JoeM on my new laptop captj they tried but didn't transfer...at least I can't find them....I can manually drag and drop the folders/files but that defeats the auto-restore f

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Need help with changing name of user profile folder

I would like to change the name of the user profile folder. I have found and tried a few methods including one from Microsoft forums. None of them worked. I kept getting something about my User needing to sign out and back in again that there was a problem, so I would sign out and back in again and it didn't work. I think the reason is because Windows created a TEMP user and would log me in under that so there would be a folder named C/User/TEMP and still the original named folder of C/User/myuserfolder.

I found this on the forums here: Change Name of User Profile Folder in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials

The instructions are very similar to what I have tried. In the above post John W used safe mode. Do I need to go through all the steps again as listed in the post and then go into safe mode, or can I just use safe mode to change the folder name?

Also, are there newer instructions for how to do this with updates to Windows since the above thread was posted over a year ago?

Thanks in advance.

 

Change User Name Folders

"The change the name on the Account folder is more difficult because it is more heavily protected. See this tutorial:https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/89060-chang..."

On this link, the details show renaming another account. I'm wanting to change the Admin account. It's a good thing I had another user setup on my computer, also as an Admin, because after changing the SID in step 8. And, unable to change the name in step
11. As "Rename" wasn't in the list. I restarted the computer, since the Admin user account name was changed I was unable to load windows. I had to log into my other account, which was setup as Admin and change the SID back to the 5 letters the user name was
titled.

My computer, Admin account, works again.

I wasn't wanting to just change another account user name, which this is possible to do. I wanted to change the main user, myself.

 

Change user folder name

Hello Lavisch,

You can safely use the method in the tutorial below to rename the user profile folder for your account.

Just to make sure, it is critical that you do step 1 and 2. You will need to be signed out of the account you want to rename the user profile folder for.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/89060-change-name-user-profile-folder-windows-10-a.html