Change the User First Name Last Name to just One name

Long story short. I multi-boot Windows 10 between my "production" partition and several "scratch" Windows 10 partitions.

On my production partition, which is my daily driver, I use just one name. Let's call it "mike." But on one of the scratch partitions, I installed Windows with "mike jones" as the user. As a result, I have run into some issues, ownership (maybe), so I want to change "mike jones" to just "mike." I've dinked around with the Accounts settings, but I can't seem to have "mike" and "mike jones" on the same Windows install, both using the same Microsoft account.

Any workarounds? Or do I need to nuke that partition and start all over?

Win10 Pro 2H22 19045 on all partitions.

x509 said:

I can't seem to have "mike" and "mike jones" on the same Windows install, both using the same Microsoft account.

Correct, you cannot have multiple user accounts in Windows sharing the same online MSAccount.

But that part of your post does not follow on smoothly from the rest of your post.
Exactly what do you mean by "scratch" Windows 10 partitions? If they are entirely separate installations then you can have whatever you want as the user name in each one.


Denis

Try3 said:

Correct, you cannot have multiple user accounts in Windows sharing the same online MSAccount.

Afraid you say that. Confirming my attempts to change the name using Windows Account options.

But that part of your post does not follow on smoothly from the rest of your post.
Exactly what do you mean by "scratch" Windows 10 partitions? If they are entirely separate installations then you can have whatever you want as the user name in each one.


Denis

Yes they are entirely separate partitions. The issue is my lack of foresight by creating the user name "mike jones" instead of just "mike." That install is almost useless. I'm afraid I will need to nuke that partition and reinstall Windows.

x509 said:

they are entirely separate partitions

Every partition is an entirely separate partition.

I guess that, by "scratch" Windows 10 partition, you mean a partition in which you have installed Windows for a multi-boot arrangement.

I was trying to understand the situation before giving advice.

x509 said:

The issue is my lack of foresight by creating the user name "mike jones" instead of just "mike."

So just create a new Admin local user account called whatever you want then delete the old user account.
You are now free to convert that new Admin local user account to an MSAccount if you want. It's C:\Users\... folder name will not change during the conversion; many people go down this route just to be able to control that folder name.


Denis

Try3 said:

Every partition is an entirely separate partition.

I guess that, by "scratch" Windows 10 partition, you mean a partition in which you have installed Windows for a multi-boot arrangement.

Yes, exactly

I was trying to understand the situation before giving advice.

Appreciate your approach here.

So just create a new Admin local user account called whatever you want then delete the old user account.
You are now free to convert that new Admin local user account to an MSAccount if you want. It's C:\Users\... folder name will not change during the conversion; many people go down this route just to be able to control that folder name.


Denis

Wow. I had not thought of that situation. Will try it probably tomorrow and report back.

- - - Updated - - -

Worked!!!

I like to think of myself as a windows expert user, but the really knowledgeable guys, what they know is above my pay grade.

I recently had this problem, Change the User First Name Last Name to just One name, and @Try3 gave the the solution. That solution probably saved me hours of work, so I think it's reasonable for me to take five minutes to write this post.

There are other very small guys here who give freely of their time to help everyone else on this forum. Thanks guys.

Win 10 Pro 64 2H22 19045