How to change user name in Windows 10.
There are two parts to changing the username
- presented username, as shown on the screen
- username as shown in the directory structure
The displayed username can be changed using the settings menus. However the name referenced within the file directory structure requires additional actions.
Change Visible Username
When I first looked into this I followed the account settings from the menu bar.
On the start menu click on the windows logo in bottom left corner. I clicked on the account entry icon and from the short popup up menu click on Change accounts settings. No option is given to make changes to the account details.
I therefore looked to the old control panel.
At the menu bar click on the windows icon in the bottom left corner and type control panel.
From the popup window of options I chose User Accounts in the right hand half.
On the User Accounts settings window there are options to edit your details or if you are editing another user account then below there s the option to Manage another account. Click on this instead to see a list of the available accounts.
As the edit is for the logged in user click on the option to Change your account name.
The breadcrumb navigation is shown as:
Control Panel > User Accounts > User Accounts > Change Your Name
On the following window labelled as Type a new account name there are confirmation details, which include the current username, confirmation of the local account, their role.
In the textbox below with the invitation New account name enter your new username here.
There is a confirmation below the textbox that this is the name which will appear on the Welcome screen and on the Start screen.
With the name entered click on the button Change Name.
I restarted the computer to observe the changes in address.
Whilst the name was showing differently the username entered for the login stayed as previously.
Change Login Username
In order to change the login name I found the control panel to use was opened by typing netplwiz in the menu search box and selecting to run as administrator.
This opens an old styling User Accounts window.
In the middle there is a pane showing a list of users for the computer.
Click on the user to be amended and then click on the Properties button below.
A new popup window shows with textboxes to enter the Username; Full name and Description. Make you amendments to the username.
To test the modification logout and try logging in with the updated user account details.
Change Directory Naming
Having changed the username the expectation is that the name would also be changed within the directory structure. Windows 10 has a directory for each user account under the Users directory.
Looking within this Users directory the naming of the sub-directories has remained the same. The directory associated with the recently renamed user has not changed.
To change the name of the folder you will need to login with an administrator account, but not the one which is to be amended. This may require the creation of a new administrator account.
If there are few users on the computer then the entries in this registry path can be checked individually for the entry with the old username.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\
As listed the entries utilise the user SID.
Look through each one to find the one with the profileimagepath value set to the existing directory.
Amend the entry to match the new username.
Also rename the directory to match too.
Note if you do change the name its possible that explicit references to files within the folder, utilising the old naming ill break.
