Windows 10: How do I fix strange username as "colon"issue against my user account.

Hi All,

I appreciate the title is a little vague and apologise for that, my issue is not easy to describe in a title.

In a nutshell, I am using Windows 10, and using my Live ID to log on to the pc. All is good, and all works fine - however there is a strange issue in that if I look at C:\Users my username it shows my user as being named "colon" instead of the actual username itself.

The logon screen shows my username as expected. When I go to accounts to manage my account - it shows my name as expected.

I am keen to try to get this resolved if it is an issue, Google has not thrown up anything about the "colon" username. I am suspecting this may be part of an issue where I am unable to play certain games that save files to "My Games" folder inside the "Documents." folder against my user. The issue there is that files will not save at all, no save games will save, and it looks like an authentication issue. I am wondering if this is related seeing as this folder is actually held within "C:\Users\colon\Documents\My Games"

When trying to add my user from the "Select Users and Groups" I cannot see a user called "colon" in the list of users. I can see a user with my proper username, and when I do a search for a user called "colon" it does find one, and when I select "Check Name" it does not error - but when selecting "Add" it does not add a user called "colon" to the list of users in the security tab - so all seems a little weird. This, however, may be why I still have an authentication issue to this folder.

I hope that makes sense, sorry for the long explanation, please feel free to ask me for any further info you need. Hopefully someone will be able to help me get this sorted. *Biggrin

:)

 

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When using a Microsoft account to log on, it lists your user name in C\Users as just the first 5 letters. If you use a local account it would list the whole user name. For instance if I had a local account named , it would show as C\users\. But, if I used a Microsoft account with the user name of the live account as it would show as C:\users\essen. May that be what your issue is?

 

It is not 100% clear to me if op is talking specifically about this (most likely though), or the displayed name above the login box, which will display an alias if set on MS account.

 

I thought he said the logon user name showed correct, but maybe I misread it.

 

Hi All, sorry let me clarify. "colon" in no way shape or form relates to my actual user name.

To clarify - if my username as per my Live Account is "Reggie Whitham" - that is what is showing on the logon screen and so on.

So, in accounts I see "Reggie Whitham"
Login Screen I see "Reggie Whitham"
When adding my user via the security tab I see the username "ComputerName\Reggie Whitham"

So in effect, where I refer to "my username" i mean "Reggie Whitham" and everything looks totally normal, apart from under C:\Users - where I do not see "Reggie Whitham" at all, I only see C:\Users\colon.

Therefore the "My Documents" folder, actually exists in "C:\Users\colon\Documents\My Games"

Hope that clarifies a little.

 

This would happen if you initially setup a local account with user colon and changed to MS account. Did you setup PC originally?

 

I agree. This is not something that Windows does.

 

I don't know how it happened, but you can Right click the C:\Users\colon folder and name it Reggie Whitham
Then press the Win key+R and in the Run box type Regedit.Take a Registry Backup – Recommended – Right Click Export And Save it.
Then browse to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList You will see SID on the left pane and when you select each SID, you will see the profile path for each user that has logged into the system. and make sure your profile name is set correctly there as well.

 

Hi all, thanks for the suggestions. To answer the questions:

1. No this is the first PC I have not built myself in years, so I bought it preconfigured. I did not set it up initially.
2. I am unable to rename the C:\User\colon folder - I do not have that option. See below for what I actually see.



3. When I check registry the user is also named "colon" in there as well, so I will change that entry once I am able to rename the folder. Any ideas on that?

 

Double-click to rename the ProfileImagePath which will allow you to change the name in the C:\Users folder in File explorer. Follow this tutorial, you are at Step 6, at this point, from the registry screenshot but only if you are signed in to another Admin account, not the 'colon' one. Otherwise start at the beginning. Good Luck

Change Name of User Profile Folder in Windows 10

 

Guys, the renaming of the folder has resolved the issue. Thank you all for your help - much appreciated *Smile