Windows 10: How to get rid of someone's old user account?

Well, this didn't do me any good at all. I went ahead and I added the other account. I signed into it. But it STILL has that same old folder in there with his name on it and if I try to delete it, it wants to delete MY folder... like its the same folder with all my stuff in it. Its tryint to delete my Administrator folder. Ugh! I guess I am just stuck with this. It even asked me to sign into my usual microsoft account for permission to delete the folder.

 

The folder will always be there since it's that account's user profile folder.

You would have to delete the account that belongs to the user profile folder before it can be deleted.

 

OKay, after I delete that account, would it generate a new administrator folder for this new account then?

 

No.

A new user profile folder doesn't get created when you add a new account and sign in to it the first time.

 

Hello. I was just beside myself trying to figure out how to create a new account and to get rid of the old one.
Finally I managed to do it. But the problem is now that whenever I do certain things my computer tells me that other users are logged on and I might lose data or something like that.


But there ARE no other users, just this new account I created. Does this mean that somehow I forgot to log off before deleting an account? And if so, does that mean there is nothing I can do about it now?

If I completely deleted my microsoft account would that fix this problem? I am pretty sure my other user account that I had on here and deleted was signed in with the microsoft account. And really I have no use for it anyway. Would that get this other old account logged off of here?

 

That warning indicates that you have some other user still signed in, but that's ok. When you restart or shut down the computer, it'll automatically sign out all users.

 

Thank you, I just figured that out right before I came here to see what the reply was and I had shut down my computer *Smile

Well at least I managed to create a new account, and without using the microsoft account stuff, so I am making progress now. But wow, that other old account just does not want to be removed from my computer. And that folder with my friend's name is still there.

I also did manage I think to get it to where it will no longer turn the computer off qutomatically at night to where I have to sign in each morning when I wake up. So that is at least 2 down and two more to go! You have been such a great help to me! I really do appreciate this.

And when I go look at what is there on my accounts under settings all it shows is this new local account, no others. But if I shut down my computer there are two accounts there. And when I try to sign in on the old one to see if I can delete it, it won't allow me to sign in. The password doesn't work, even if I try signing in under the option of using my microsoft account and password. I went to the account.live whatever site and changed the password just to make sure and then used that new password to log in and still it would not work.

 

I'm glad I could help some. *Smile

It sounds like the old account may still be there. Use the tutorial below to see all account details, and post back the information from it to see if the account is still there or not.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...dows-10-a.html

 

Okay I will have to do that tomorrow because it is getting late here where I am at.

But guess what? I somehow managed to change the name on that folder that was bugging me half to death!


Here is what I did... any time I would try to rename it or delete it, something would pop up saying it was open somewhere else and could not be deleted or renamed. So I decided to do the old msconfig thing and I turned off all the services that were running and restarted my computer with everything turned off. Then I went back and decided to rename the folder rather than delete it, in case I were to delete something important, and to my surprise, it worked! Then I went back and did the msconfig thing again and set all the services enabled again and restarted my computer and checked and the folder is now officially renamed!

So now it is 3 down and 1 to go, which is that problem with no being able to get rid of that old account, mainly now because I can't even log into it now. But even if I never ever am able to get rid of it, it will be well worth it to get rid of that old folder LOL!

I will know in the morning whether or not my computer automatically shut itself down or not. Hopefully not, since I managed to accidentally find the thing to check or uncheck that says not to put the computer to sleep and make you have to resign in every day.

Anyway good night and once again... thank you!

 

I forgot to say that I did notice that it seemed that when I tried to set my thingy on logging in as administrator where you go to the net administrator and whatever else like active: yes that it told me access is denied. And it made me wonder then if that means the administrator thing is on in this other account maybe? Like I am not sure if you can have two different administrator accounts? Whats weird though is in this new account I have it set as tye type of account being administrator. I hope that I did not hopelessly mess anything up, making it where I can never ever log in as the administrator in this new account.

 

Okay here is the list it gave to me. By the way, my computer STILL turned itself off last night and I had to turn it back on myself this morning, so I think that probably means the other account is still there. I guess this means that I will continue to have that problem unless the old account is somehow removed. *Sad





AccountType=512
Description=Built-in account for administering the computer/domain
Disabled=TRUE
Domain=CLAUDIAPC
FullName=
InstallDate=
LocalAccount=TRUE
Lockout=FALSE
Name=Administrator
PasswordChangeable=TRUE
PasswordExpires=FALSE
PasswordRequired=TRUE
SID=S-1-5-21-1118451830-2243368315-1211529218-500
SIDType=1
Status=Degraded




AccountType=512
Description=
Disabled=FALSE
Domain=CLAUDIAPC
FullName=
InstallDate=
LocalAccount=TRUE
Lockout=FALSE
Name=Claudia
PasswordChangeable=TRUE
PasswordExpires=FALSE
PasswordRequired=FALSE
SID=S-1-5-21-1118451830-2243368315-1211529218-1007
SIDType=1
Status=OK




AccountType=512
Description=A user account managed by the system.
Disabled=TRUE
Domain=CLAUDIAPC
FullName=
InstallDate=
LocalAccount=TRUE
Lockout=FALSE
Name=DefaultAccount
PasswordChangeable=TRUE
PasswordExpires=TRUE
PasswordRequired=TRUE
SID=S-1-5-21-1118451830-2243368315-1211529218-503
SIDType=1
Status=Degraded




AccountType=512
Description=Built-in account for guest access to the computer/domain
Disabled=TRUE
Domain=CLAUDIAPC
FullName=
InstallDate=
LocalAccount=TRUE
Lockout=FALSE
Name=Guest
PasswordChangeable=FALSE
PasswordExpires=FALSE
PasswordRequired=FALSE
SID=S-1-5-21-1118451830-2243368315-1211529218-501
SIDType=1
Status=Degraded

 

Here are the screen shots from both the PC Settings/Accounts view and the Control Panel/User Accounts view. Also with the Family and other Users Accounts view. And as you can see, it only seems to show the one account. If it isn't okay to post these here, just let me know and I will remove the screenshots. And like I said, it was a little strange to me that when I tried doing the thing where you make yourself Administrator, it said Access denied. So I am not sure then if this is a true real administrator account? I don't know anything much about this sort of stuff. But I just am afraid of never being able to do things as the Administrator again.

Also just adding that when I shut down my computer and restart it, it shows the two different accounts to sign into. And only one of them can be signed into, which is the last one I created, that shows on all these screenshots.

Just to explain what I mean about the Administrator thing... If I go to my Users folder and click to open it, there is a folder called "Administrator".


If I click on this folder, it says "You currently do not have permission to open this folder" and then I had to click 'continue' to be able to open it. Which I don't understand, since it says on my account that I am Administrator.


Then when I tried to do the changing it to Administrator using the CMD thing, it said "Access Denied"... just to explain that further when I said I am confused about whethere I am actually the Administrator of this new account. It makes me wonder if the other old invisible account is still in control.

 

Claudia,

It shows that the only activated account on your PC is your "Claudia" account.

Your "Claudia" account is a local account, and it is an "administrator" type account. Even as an administrator, you must approve (UAC) before being able to do anything that requires elevated rights.

The "Administrator" folder you tried to open was the user profile folder of the built-in elevated "Administrator" account that is currently disabled. Access other user's profile folders require elevated right, and thus why you had to approve (Continue) first.

As for the CMD issue, it sounds like you didn't open an elevated command prompt (right click on CMD, and click on "Run as administrator".


In Windows XP, administrator accounts were elevated and have full unrestricted access.

Since Windows Vista, administrator accounts are no longer elevated by default. Administrators must first provide approval (UAC) whenever they try to perform an action that requires elevated rights. This was done to help provide better security so that malware couldn't just easily perform elevated actions without you getting a UAC prompt for approval first. You can also use run as administrator to run something elevated.

The built-in elevated Administrator account in Vista, Windows 7, 8, 10 is like the one in XP. However, modern apps will not run in an elevated account.

 

Okay then but why is it that whenever I shut my computer down and restart it, there are two different accounts there that I can choose to sign in to? But one of them won't allow me to when I put in the email and password? I wish I could take a screenshot of that but I have to use my Paint Shop Pro to do it, and of course I can't till I log in.

 

Well now I have got 2 more problems solved *Smile


I tried the screenshot thing and it seems to be working now in this new account.


I turned my computer off again so that I could take a screenshot to show you what it looks like, but it won't let me do a screenshot till I log in.


But anyway the Administrator thing now works since I followed your instructions and retried it. But now it has THREE log in things LOL!


It says:


Claudia


Administrator


Claudia's PC

And why does it still shut off the computer every night? I did everything I could think of it make it stop doing that. I turned the screen saver thing off, under Personalize, I turned off the power saver to "Never" and I even turned it off in the User account where it gives you the option to tell it not to go into sleeper mode. Now it is changing the keyboard language thing when it turns off and I turn it back on. It changes the keyboard back to US but my keyboard is a UK keyboard. On the ENG thing in my askbar I have it set to UK United Kingdom. It makes where every time I put quotations it is @ instead.