Windows 8 User Folder Rename

Anonymous
2012-11-05T02:40:10+00:00

My current username in Windows 8 is Danny.  The directory of my user folder is C:\Users\danch_000 .  This is annoying and driving me crazy.  I should also tell you this user is tied to my Microsoft Account.  On my Microsoft Account my Name is Danny.  How can I change the name of the folder without messing anything up in he registry or any other part of the computer.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2012-11-09T14:33:16+00:00

Ok dude... this is a hassle but it does work.

Summary:

You need to log in on a local admin account (create one if it does not exist already), delete your user account (Danny) and then rename the danch_000 folder to danny.old (I do this only so that you do not lose any data you may have already saved here. it is just a backup folder now)

then Create a new LOCAL user called Danny. Log into this user account and all the files will be under C:\Users\Danny.

Now you must go to pc settings and choose switch to Microsoft account.

Once the process is finished, you are using a Microsoft Live account, with the 'User' Displayed as your full name, but all the files are in a directory named 'Danny'

If this is too summarized for you and you need detailed instructions just post here and tell me, I am in the process of creating a guide for just this issue for my coworkers

Yrs Red

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-10-10T00:55:28+00:00

    Can you send me a full detailed instructions on how to do so?

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-09-04T17:00:25+00:00

    OEM set me up in Win10 as 'Owner' so now have a folder 'C:\Users\Owner'.  All that is needed from MS is tool to be able to change this to a chosen name - eg 'Bob' instead of 'Owner'.

    I've looked at the Regedit route - not for the feint-hearted and not recommended.  Also, I don't really want to mess around with making new accounts and then deleting the old 'Owner' administrator account.

    In the mean time, I will just have to put up with the 'Owner' folder in the 'User' directory until MS comes up with the tool to do a simple rename - and that sorts out the large number of registry changes that are needed!

    This must be a general problem with all OEM installs unless they ask what the 'Owner' wants to be know as!!

    Over to MS for the fix.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-06-14T23:50:42+00:00

    @KMFDick's method will break your system.

    The user folder is tied to your user account. When you are logged in, Windows will look for files in that original folder, and will write things to that folder.

    At the very least, you'll also need to modify registry keys if you start down that path.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-06-14T20:43:11+00:00

    Don't do that! It will not be right. Microsoft is aware of the issue and will bring a fix. I know it's annoying buy just put it out of your mind. I also know that's hard, I'm OCD about these type of things, but it's for the best. If you start to rename important folders you will regret it. Just my 2 cents based on a 20 year career in IT.

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