Username change caused serious problems
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Username change caused serious problems
Hello Folks,
I was wondering if anyone has experienced similar problems after a Username change.
My daughter got a new Lenovo Ideapad 520 for her computation studies at university about a week ago, and this i7 Octacore with 16Gb RAM and Windows 10 is certainly fast, and has great graphic quality.
Everything was going perfectly until she decided to change her Username last night, the process of which she obediently followed correctly after looking it up on the Microsoft page.
Just after that, on the next startup, things started going seriously wrong.
Updated comment:
Sorry, it was even before the next startup. Immediately after the name change, the task bar, Cortana, and the configurations menu stopped working, and things got worse on later startups.
The computer slowed down and icons stopped working on the menu bar. She was lucky enough to be able to make a backup of her work onto an external HDD in time, just before everything stopped working.
The only thing that worked after a start-up was the short cut (shift+left mouse-click on the re-start option of the shut-down box), to be able access the recovery menu.
First, we tried the restoring point she created after she got her computer working last week. Things seemed to work for a while before things started slowing down again, and even shutting down took ages.
The next thing we tried, was load up the hard-disk-image she had made a week ago, and when that was done everything was back in working order at the usual speed - just for a while.
After half an hour things started going wrong again, along the same lines.
So... the third thing we are trying, is a total factory reset, which is of course taking ages.
We started it at 1 o´clock in the morning, and now it is 8.45 in the morning, and it is still at 12%.
Updated comment:
Over an hour later it is still at 12%. This is very strange. It has been so for 8 hours.
Is that normal even on a 2 Tb hard disk? How can a Username change break a computer?
The impression I get, is that the Username change last night coincided with a Win10 forced update (all updates seem to be forced with Win10...), and that this update has really made a mess, and continues to mess up all remedial actions.
The problem with the updates is that it doesn´t even tell you what´s going on, let alone allow you to choose whether you want it or not, or even postpone it.
Updated comment:
That is of course, IF it is a Win10 update that is to blame. What started it all was a simple Username change done strictly following the steps published by Microsoft, using netplwiz.
But, how can a Usename change cause such havoc? Will it affect the related Microsoft account, because my daughter´s 6-year-old AMD QuadCore laptop (Windows 10 and still working), also uses it.
I wonder what will happen once it finishes its factory-reset (tomorrow, perhaps?) and Windows 10 starts updating itself. It seems like a vicious circle.
I wonder if anyone has any ideas... apart from returning the laptop, which is still on guarantee...
I would be very grateful for suggestions, opinions or anything that could help.
Thank you very much in advance for your possible answers.
Cheers,
Van Allen Belt
Last edited by Van Allen Belt; 10 Nov 2018 at 05:06.
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Hi, there are several issues, all complicated by MS problems
Background: some buggy releases, in particular build 1809 was released briefly, and after some 5 weeks is still being massaged back into some semblance of a usable OS- or so we hope - perhaps vainly.
At present the latest available to download is build 1803. That has some problems with choosing default programs - widely reported and acknowledged by MS.
The last 'good' release (my opinion) is 1709.
Factory reset
As you know that takes you back to the state the PC was in when bought, and so an older build of Windows.
Assuming that's one before May last year, you will then be faced with a download of 4Gb + a large one for the subsequent cumulative update, and a number of other items.
How do you protect yourself and save yourself a huge amount of time and frustration?
Use disk imaging routinely - e.g. Macrium Reflect (free) + large external storage for disk image sets.
If you have a disk image, you can restore it, even to a new disk if the old one fails, and have your PC back running as it was when you created the image (other hardware faults aside), in under an hour.
We constantly urge users to use disk imaging. Can be used for Windows and any combination of disks/partitions.
Acts as a full backup too.
This would probably have saved you doing a factory reset, and all the reconfiguration, installation, data copying, removal of trialware subsequent to that- and saved you a massive Windows update.
Which build does your PC restore to?
Windows key + R, winver
Which edition do you have? Home or Pro?
With Pro you have quite a lot of control over updates. With Home, really only Active Hours in Settings to limit times when restarts may occur.
One approach to controlling updates in Home:
a. use this:
Stop Windows 10 Updates Properly and Completely Solved - Windows 10 Forums
then
b. use this to do updates:
Windows Update Minitool (free)
- This can scan for updates when you want it to.
Windows 10 starts updating itself.
This is how Home is designed. Ideally updates would be silent and bug free. They are, sometimes, but in the last 6 months MS has gained a terrible reputation.
Further, there are many reasons a feature update (upgrade) may fail- when it does, it just keeps repeating- repeated huge downloads.
In Settings you can limit the bandwidth used for downloads in more recent builds.
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Hello dalchina,
Thanks for your prompt response.
We did the disk-image full-backup thing, and it started failing again about an hour later.
The edition is Home, but the computer is still at 12%, not working yet, so we can´t find the build number.
More later...
Thanks,
Van
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Hi, great you've tried to use disk imaging.
it started failing again about an hour later.
- do you mean restoring an image or creating one? Was there an error message? Which imaging program are you using?
If it failed when creating an image, that can mean there's a disk problem - but unlikely with a new PC...
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Sounds very much like a failing HDD.
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Hi, great you've tried to use disk imaging.
- do you mean restoring an image or creating one? Was there an error message? Which imaging program are you using?
If it failed when creating an image, that can mean there's a disk problem - but unlikely with a new PC...
Hello again, dalchina,
Sorry, had to rush off for a minute. I do apologize.
The disk-image was created a week ago, and we re-loaded it last night.
Everything worked fine for about one hour.
This included a few re-starts and everything seemd perfect, but the problems started again:
Task-bar, Cortana and the configurations menu failed, plus general slowdown, and it took ages to shut down.
Upon a re-start, the problems persisted, although Google browser worked perfectly...
Anyway, everything else was still so bad that it was the reason for the factory reset.
For about 10 hours we had the black screen reporting 12% progress.
Now there´s some new news:
Windows started installing itself, and my daughter is currently doing the initial configurations.
(Meanwhile we contacted the shop and they are willing to take the computer back if it continues failing).
At least it looks like the computer is not broken, but it´s amazing how a Username change can
trigger so much suffering.
So, from what I can deduce from your attentive reply, is that it would be best now to re-load the disk-image we
did last week once everything was installed - but as that disk-image failed last night, maybe it´s not such a good idea.
Could it be that the Username change has affected something that is going to be re-imported from the new disk image?
Would it be necessary to use a new username and create a new user account, just in case there´s a bug, or is this question pure nonesense?
I´ll check out the Windows Update Minitool now.
Thanks for your valuable support.
Van
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Hi, no, don't restore the image given where you are now.
But what you should do is create a new base image... 
- as soon as possible.
Could you clarify exactly how you did the name change? There's one thing I have in mind..perhaps..
If you use a MS live id, best to keep the same one. Inevitably given you've done a factory reset you have to create a new account on that PC anyway.
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Sounds very much like a failing HDD.
Hello NavyLCDR,
Thanks for your post - I was afraid of a HDD failure too... but it seems so strange on an eight-day-old
laptop than has not been mistreated. Not impossible, of course.
Anyway, now we have managed to re-install Windows 10, we will watch out for further issues, and should things continue going wrong, the shop has agreed to take the laptop back within the next three weeks, although they are now out of stock, and my daughter really likes it. Maybe it will be OK, though.
Hello dalchina,
OK, thanks for the warning!
My daughter is just preparing to create a new disk image. She was getting quite paranoid, so she created another Username and User Account, and thus won´t use the old disk-image anyway.
The Username change that triggered this whole issue was done following Microsoft´s indications using
netplwiz. It was the single user/administrator name - there are no further users on the laptop.
My other daughter suggested that the Username change caused this Win10 confusion, but there shouldn´t really be any HDD trouble caused.
We shall see...
Cheers,
Van
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Seems to be working.
Hello dalchina,
Thank you very much for your advice - it is turning out to be very useful indeed!
My daughter´s new laptop seems to be in working order again, at least for the moment.
She has installed the few programs needed for her studies, mainly Anaconda and Office, and also Spotify, and following your instructions, she has created a new full-backup hard-disk image.
Apparently, a university friend of hers has had a similar issue very recently, undergoing successfull restoring from a hard-disk image. It wasn´t as bad, probably because this other student didn´t make a Username change, although the culprit seems unclear as yet. It was caused either by a Win10 update, or by OneDrive (which my daughter doesn´t use).
I got the Minitool - thanks a lot - and first installed it on my own WIN10 laptop, just to see how this Minitool is to be used. My laptop is an AMD A10, which works fine. Updates there are mostly 1279, to do with Windows Defender, and some accummulative 1803 Windows 10 and Adobe Flash ones, the lastest Windows 10 one being from October 15th.
I activated "Manage by Administrator" in Minitools, but further than that, I wouldn´t know what to look for, to know what to block out or to allow.
"Manage by Administrator" is what I suppose will have to be set on my daughter´s new Lenovo Ideapad 520 laptop now. It has an Intel i7 8550 CPU, so updates would affect it differently from my laptop.
My daughter is now off on a student´s outing to the Astrophysics observatory until tomorrow night, so her computer will be off until then, and the Minitools installation will have to wait, so I´ll report back after.
Thanks a lot for now!
Cheers,
Van
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