Solved Can I change the folder name under c:\users?

When I change the account name it does not affect the folder name. Is there a way to change it?

See: Change Name of User Profile Folder in Windows 11 Tutorial

Requires some hacking tho using cmd line admin tools and the registry editor

martik777 said:

When I change the account name it does not affect the folder name. Is there a way to change it?

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The easiest way that I know of is to create a new User with the name you want. Make sure it has Admin rights and when you have it setup the way you want you can remove the old User if you want. I'm guessing that MS setup your User name with the first five characters of your email address.

Seems to work. I had to go thru settings/account/family... to add the new user as Control panel only allows changes. Then I had to sign in with the new user for it to create the new folder under \users.

I created the initial user without a MS account so it used my userid. If I use a MS account it creates another whole structure under onedrive\username - personal for documents etc

Very confusing lol

martik777 said:

Very confusing lol

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This is my opinion on why MS is doing this. By making users sign-in to a MS Account they can move the Users data to OneDrive with limited data storage. If the user doesn't know that they can move their data to a local drive what are they going to when they run out of storage space. If they don't have someone they can ask what to do, a lot of them are going to contact MS. Is MS going to instruct them on how to move their data to a local drive or try to sell them more OneDrive space or a Microsoft 365 subscription? Hmm, I wonder. The only reason I can see about MS using the first five characters of our email address instead of allowing us to choose our user name is because they don't want to.

Winuser said:

The only reason I can see about MS using the first five characters of our email address instead of allowing us to choose our user name is because they don't want to.

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IMO - it is just lazy programming.

All my Win10 and Win11 Home and Pro computers have Local accounts except my latest cheapo Notebook which has a Microsoft Account and that's only because I need to see what my clients see when they have issues.

I had to deal with a Notebook that had 2 Users but the issue was the owner was advised to create a second account [Local] but unfortunately used the same exact name, caused all documents to get into the same folders, difficult to sort out. The User names should have been at least one character different.

cereberus said:

IMO - it is just lazy programming.

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Or to busy making new emojis. IMHO MS should assign their Copilot to making emojis and allow their programs to work on more important things.

Berton said:

All my Win10 and Win11 Home and Pro computers have Local accounts

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When I setup a new device or do a clean install I use a local account. Sadly MS is making it harder to do. I don't sign-in until the computer is all set up and only on the computers that need access to my MS account.

Winuser said:

When I setup a new device or do a clean install I use a local account. Sadly MS is making it harder to do. I don't sign-in until the computer is all set up and only on the computers that need access to my MS account.

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That's what I have done, set the computer up with defaults then create a new User as Local Account with Admin rights then reboot into it and remove the Microsoft Account. So far can still access the Store when needed and seems to help when wanting to ignore OneDrive.

Berton said:

That's what I have done, set the computer up with defaults then create a new User as Local Account with Admin rights then reboot into it and remove the Microsoft Account. So far can still access the Store when needed and seems to help when wanting to ignore OneDrive.

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I have two users on my main PCs and they both have Admin rights. I do this in case my user profile gets corrupted. This gives me the option of either creating a new user or using a backup image.

@martik777

I'm guessing this was a new installation, without a whole lot of your stuff in the Users <original MS account name> folder?

Wisewiz said:

@martik777

I'm guessing this was a new installation, without a whole lot of your stuff in the Users <original MS account name> folder?

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Yep, new install for a friend who is not too computer savvy. I'm debating whether to add a MS acct for the "simplicity" of onedrive backup. 5GB would be plenty.

I was just concerned that if you copied too much from the old user account to the new user account, you'd pick up all of the MS trash along the way.

Going back to my previous reply #10, when removing a User there's a prompt to save its files and it's usually in a different folder on the Desktop, no intermingling with other/s.

My friend's email address is twatson@#######.### so his user name defaulted to an obscene slang word. He is not happy.

The times that happened to me it took the first 5 characters of my E-Mail address. In the case described I'd create a new User with an appropriate name, Local Account with Administrator rights, sign out/log out then reboot. Should have 2 choices on the log-in screen, pick the new one then remove the undesired account. If later needing a Microsoft Account use a different address, check mail.com for free choices.