Solved Issue installing with Microsoft account - It auto-names the User folder

I decided to do a clean install of Win 11 Pro for Workstations on my desktop and decided to see how using my Microsoft account during the install could do me any good. The install went smooth and the name i gave the PC was reflected in System Information, something that not were the case in Win 10 with it´s randomized names such as DESKTOP-1B8K0YZ. So that´s good.

But after a while i discovered that the name of my User folder were C:\Users\abcdef instead of the expected C:\Users\UserName. The name abcdef was the first five letters in my mailadress used for my Microsoft account. (I just use abcdef here as an example here)

I have my real name registered in my Microsoft account but wonder why it assumes that my name is the first five letters in my mail adress. AI at it´s best?

Yesterday i did a new clean install and choosed to not use my Microsoft account during install and this time i got the option to name the PC and the option to name the user. The latter were correctly reflected in C:\Users\UserName

Did this happen to others, iow that the name for the C:\Users\UserName got wacked when using a Microsoft account during install?

Yes, that is the way it has worked since day one of Windows 10.

Yes this is normal behavior both on Windows 10 and 11

NavyLCDR said:

Yes, that is the way it has worked since day one of Windows 10.

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SlicEnDicE said:

Yes this is normal behavior both on Windows 10 and 11

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Got it! :)

I have probably missed that since i never used my MS account during install of Win 10.

NavyLCDR said:

Yes, that is the way it has worked since day one of Windows 10.

Click to expand...

SlicEnDicE said:

Yes this is normal behavior both on Windows 10 and 11

Click to expand...

Totally trivial regarding OP's quostion, but the way Windows labels user profile when installed using MS account started already in Windows 8.

2112 said:

Got it! :)

I have probably missed that since i never used my MS account during install of Win 10.

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To get user profile labelled exactly as you wish, yet getting all benefits and features of an MS account, see this tutorial:

Kari

I went the clean install route, and because I didn't like the username MS gave my folder, I promptly created a new user with the name I wanted, gave it admin priv's, logged original user out and logged back in with new user's creds, and deleted the original user. Total time maybe five minutes, and emptying the recycle bin of the old user's username files. Works easily if done early, and it's much easier than changing username through the convoluted many-step process.

2112 said:

Did this happen to others, iow that the name for the C:\Users\UserName got wacked when using a Microsoft account during install?

Click to expand...

Yes, that's standard behaviour. Only installing as a local account will use the account name as the user folder name. So even if you intend to use a Microsoft account, install as a local account and switch it to an MS account later. Or better yet, use Kari's 'hybrid account' method.

It's worth noting that when clean installing Home the local account option is missing and only an MS account is offered, only Pro offers a choice of account type. That was the same in 10 Home. There are ways around this involving disconnecting while installing, but 11 Home makes it a little more difficult to achieve than it was in 10 Home.

If you want to be able to choose what the name of the profile folder is, you need to first install using a local account.
You can then switch to a Microsoft account later.

Just to echo what Stigg noted, I always start by creating a local account, in my case hanness. Then, after Windows is installed, I will choose the option to logon with a Microsoft account. So, this has the effect of making my user folder on every machine C:\users\hanness. In addition, I can connect to network resources using the user name hanness universally across all my systems.

Note that this won't work for Windows 11 Home edition since you cannot create a local account to start.

hsehestedt said:

Note that this won't work for Windows 11 Home edition since you cannot create a local account to start.

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Oh yes you can, but the workaround is not as straightforward as it was for 10 Home....

Install Windows 11 Home using Local Account - post #48

hsehestedt said:

Just to echo what Stigg noted, I always start by creating a local account, in my case hanness. Then, after Windows is installed, I will choose the option to logon with a Microsoft account. So, this has the effect of making my user folder on every machine C:\users\hanness. In addition, I can connect to network resources using the user name hanness universally across all my systems.

Note that this won't work for Windows 11 Home edition since you cannot create a local account to start.

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That's exactly what I do. I use the word "Admin", so I have C:\Users\Admin on all computers.
You can then change to a Microsoft account or even change the local account name. The folder will always be the same.

It's a personal choice what word you pick. But I don't use a person's name. I choose something more generic.

In addition, you can use the method in the tutorial below to change the name of the user profile folder in Windows 11.

Brink said:

In addition, you can use the method in the tutorial below to change the name of the user profile folder in Windows 11.

Change Name of User Profile Folder in Windows 10

How to Change the Name of a User Profile Folder in Windows 10

www.tenforums.com

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I did that first and it worked with one minor and maybe one major incident.

It worked as a charm to start with but the minor issue was that once done i could not search for any apps in the Start menu. I re-indexed the database but all apps were still gone until i installed another app only to see if i could find that app. That worked and all other installed apps magically started to show up as well, so everything was back to normal.

The next day i had a major incident that rendered the Win 11 installation corrupted. Every boot stopped at the log in screen and the word "Welcome" got replaced with "Preparing Windows" for maybe 10 minutes until i got logged in into a new desktop with a message saying that Windows have issues with log in, that can often be resolved by signing out and then signing in again. It did not work.

This happened after i had used Macrium Reflect to restore some files from a "File and folder" backup to the Users folder. I made sure that the original path were identical to the new path but the restoration that should have take 5-10 seconds took 50 seconds. When done i minimized Macrium and the color of the desktop were green-ish and all icons from the Task bar were gone. A restart took me into the "Preparing Windows" loop. I tried to use the Win 11 USB stick to do a Repair but it failed.

I don´t know if the restore of the backup and the "Preparing Windows" was even related to the fact that i had changed the name. Or, that it is a compability issue since Macrium is not yet certified for Win 11.

That´s when i did a new fresh install without even using the Windows account which gave me the correct name from the start.

Conclusion:
I should have mounted the Macrium backup file in Explorer and just manually copied the few files instead of doing an in-app-restore and i should never use the MS account during install...

Thanks for everyones help! :)