Windows 10: Is it possible to change my username esp in My User folder... it was chosen for me and I...

So about 4-5 months ago, I upgraded to Windows 11, my profile name at the start of Windows is perfectly my real name. But the name it chose for My User Folder is the first 5 letters of my email address, and it doesn't fit well and doesn't really have any appeal. I don't know why it chose this, but is there a way to safely change it without having to do a reinstall?

:)

 

Current active users that are friends

The other reason I suggested this is that users can add characters to their username that are not alphanumeric (e.g. user*). This confuses things somewhat when looking at the list.

 

Is it possible change the name of the user folder?

Hi all,

I recently installed Windows 10 and in the process created a user. A few days later I noticed that anoyingly the folder name of the user folder is spelt wrong (or rather the two last letters are simply missing). It seems there is an actual user name
and then one (or more) display name(s). The display name is correct, but the actual username used in the folder name is wrong.

I search for a solution on how to change the username in the correct way so that all things attached to the user still will be attached to the user after the name change has been done, if that is at all possible to do. I didn’t find any good solution to this.

Any ideas?

EDIT: I found out that Microsoft takes the first five letters in the email adress you use in your Microsoft account and uses that as name for the user folder. That is why it looks like it does.

 

How to change the username and username folder in windows 10

I recently purchased a new computer with Windows 10 installed. After syncing with my Microsoft account my User folder name had truncated to the first five characters of my email address, 'antho'. As I had no software and files loaded I thought it would
be a good time to attempt the change to my folder name. I had success following youssoufsawadogo's method. My exact steps were:

• As I was intending to make a change to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList I made a backup of this file first. This was done from Registry Editor by selecting the Key and File (from top menu bar) > Export. Note that
  the file path contains 'WindowsNT'. I looked for a Windows 10 version but there were none so I went with WindowNT.
• Open Settings>Accounts>Your Info>Sign In With a Local Account Instead. Enter password, then change username to what you want it to be, in my case 'Anthony'. As per youssoufsawadogo's instructions I didn't input a password and was able to click through
  without doing so. After doing that Windows signed out. Sign back in using the Local Account.
• Open Registry Editor.
• Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. See youssoufsawadogo's screen shot.
• Expand ProfileList folder. Search the files on the right under the Data column for something like C:\Users\antho where the last bit is the username you want to change.
• Double click/right click on ProfileImagePath and clear your name and replace it with the one you want, e.g. Anthony.
• Press OK and close the Registry Editor window.
• Go to C:\Users\. You should see folders including TEMP, Anthony (the name you want), antho (the name you want to change). Make sure you see TEMP. If not, restart the computer. Restart at this point was like you were starting Windows for the first time
  in that there was more behind the scenes activity.
• Delete Anthony (the name you just created).
• Rename antho (the name you want to change) folder to Anthony (the name you want). At this point, if you hadn't seen TEMP and restarted your computer in Step 8 (as was the case for me when I did it the first time), a dialogue box appears saying, "You Need
  To Provide Administrator Permission To Rename This Folder". I was able to click CONTINUE but then a second dialogue box appeared saying, "Action Can't Be Completed Because Folder Is Open In Another Program". I had to go back and restart my computer. Then
  I saw the TEMP folder in Step 8 and didn't get the dialogue boxes in Step 10.
• Restart computer.
• Verify that the username folder has changed to Anthony (the name you want).
• Go Settings>Accounts>Your Info and sign in with your normal Microsoft account.
• Verify that your normal computer settings have returned.

That's it. The TEMP file with size 0 bytes still remains in the Users folder. I deleted it with no harm done. I hope this helps.