Windows 10: Renaming username and user folder - has anyone had any success?

Hey

I've recently built a PC without a Windows licence – I wanted to test everything first before shelling out (and I definitely will be buying one). Unfortunately, my username can't be changed at the moment, and my user folder is just the first 5 letters of my email address.

It doesn't matter at all, but has anyone here had any success changing their username and their user folder name, so all paths are updated? I've seen mixed opinions and experiences on it online, and I can imagine it being a real pain, so I'll live if it just isn't possible.

This article says it's possible, but I don't want to risk messing something up, and I really don't want to spend another day or 2 downloading things, messing around with licences, reinstalling stuff, etc. I'm a sound guy with loads of software and plugins, and so fresh installation with a Windows key isn't an option (just cos I don't want to go through that again).

https://www.wintips.org/how-to-rename-user-profile-folder-in-windows-10-8-7/

Cheers!

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:)

 

Renaming the users folders

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community.

You are trying to rename the User folder, which can’t be done through the File explorer. Whatever user name you use of your User account, user account folder will have same name. You can rename the Subfolder of the User account folder but not User
account folder.

If you want rename the User account folder, change user account name using the suggestion

Lets’ refer to these steps to rename the User account and check if that helps.

• Press Windows and X keys together.
• Click on Control Panel, click on User Accounts.
• Click on User account, then click on “Change your account name”
• If it’s prompting for password please enter and click on Yes. If you do not have password click on
  Yes.
• Enter the new user name.
• Click on change name.

Reference link for more information.

Windows 8 User Folder Rename.

Windows 8 User Folder Rename



Please do let us know if you need further help.

 

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.

 

User Folder Renamed

It is totally unclear what you did and how. The fact is that Windows will not let you rename your profile folder while you are logged on. The only way goes like this. Note that this is is an unsupported operation that could cause serious problems:

1. Log on under a different account, one that has admin privileges.
2. Rename the folder C:\Users\Nath to C:\Users\Nathan
3. Adjust certain keys in the registry to reflect the change.

Now please report exactly what you did.