Change Name of User Profile Folder Tutorial-- Edited Name Won't Save.

flasny80 · 31 Jan 2018

I created a second temporary admin user name, logged in and found the correct file in the registry editor. However, every time I try to edit the user name, according to Step 8 of the tutorial here,

Change Name of User Profile Folder in Windows 10 User Accounts Tutorials

I get the following error message., "Cannot edit profile image path. Error writing value's new contents." Changing the case of the edited user name results in the same error.

I need to change the paths because my OS became corrupted and crashed recently apparently from a failed automatic update. Repair techs reset to factory settings and the default user, "Owner." I was able to go in and change the user name on the lock screen and start menu to my existing one, but since the folders are still "Owner," my third party automatic backup service software does not recognize this as the same computer and will not restore certain data nor back up new data. There have been too many programs and data already manually restored by the repair techs or me to delete "Owner" and start over.

I'm an experienced, moderately computer literate user who can follow instructions and links, but I'm not technical, so please keep responses specific and relatively simple. Thank you.

lx07 · 31 Jan 2018

Sounds like you don't have authority.

Are you sure the user you made is definitely part of administrators group? You can check it by running this from elevated command prompt - it will list profiles which are part of Administrators group. In my case it is Hali and Administrator

Code:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> net localgroup administrators
Alias name     administrators
Comment        Administrators have complete and unrestricted access to the computer/domain

Members

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hali
Administrator
The command completed successfully.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32>

If the profile is part of Administrators group then check the permissions on the key in regedit. Browse to the relevant S-1-15-21-xxxxxx key, right click and select "Permissions...". Administrators should have full control like this:

hawkman · 31 Jan 2018

Dont forget

Change User Name
Change User Profile

are 2 different things

Change User Name of Account in Windows 10 User Accounts Tutorials

Roy

flasny80 · 31 Jan 2018

Thank you both. I was able to change the permissions and edit as in Step 8, proceeded through Steps 9 and 10 and got stuck again on Step 11, Couldn't rename "Owner" because of an error message that the file was open. I was logged in under the temporary administrator and signed out of my primary user at the time. Of course, because the two locations now didn't match, when I tried to sign in under the primary user again, I couldn't , so I went back and reversed Step 8 for now. Please assist. Thank you.

lx07 · 01 Feb 2018

I'd reboot, sign on your temp account and start again from step 8.

Something had C:\Users\Owner open and rebooting should clear it.

When you get to step 11 make sure it looks like the picture in the tutorial.

Don't open C:\Users\Owner so you see the contents (C:\Users\Owner\Documents, C:\Users\Owner\Downloads etc) in any File Explorer window.

flasny80 · 02 Feb 2018

Thank you. Technically, this works, as I was able to change to the preferred user, but it then rendered numerous programs and shortcuts inoperable, including Outlook and my backup software. Am I correct in assuming that there's no practical way of searching and replacing every instance of "Owner" in file paths with the preferred user?