XP User Folder

[BOAC]

One for the Windows genii--

In the process of helping a friend with a second-hand 'puter formerly owned by Fred Smith.

I have changed the reg owner key and now have him logging on to his own name, but Windows is still calling for the 'Fred Smith' user folder. Where do I find the pointer for this setting so I can redirect the 'puter to a folder with his own name?

Edit for spelling!

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Complete change of ownership of a computer is about the one case in which I would recommend, and have done, "wipe the disk and reinstall Windows".

As a bonus, that gets rid of all Fred Smith's viruses, and all Fred Smith's illegal kiddie porn, and no doubt other stuff that neither of us has even thought of.

[BOAC]

Granted the possible risks etc, but so far it has gone ok. and all virus scans clean so far - machine is over 1 year in current ownership.

[MacBoero]

Create new account, with desired name.
Give it administration rights.
Log out of the old unwanted account.
Log into the new account.
Delete the old account.

[gizmocat]

Yep, that's the best way to do it.

[BOAC]

Mac - all done bar the deletion because the 'old' user profile (with the wrong name) was the one with all the desired set up. I am trying to get his original stuff into the new folder - a lot is there already, favourites, emails, contacts etc etc but I would like to know how Win XP determines the location of the user folder at logon.

[MacBoero]

Its all done through the use of black magic and voodoo, otherwise known as the "Registry". The registry is not something to mess around with, unless you really know what you're doing, as one wrong move can render the machine unbootable and useless, and require a complete reinstall. Most techniques for changing the identity of a user usually only result in partial changes. For example changing the user name from John to Fred, will on the face of it appear to work, but when you look deeper you'll find that most of the underlying folder structures and registry entries will still retain the old John names. To change them would break all sorts of dependencies throughout the system file structure, and is therefore not really worth attempting.

The technique I listed is the simplest way, to create a new clean account with the details you want. Copying stuff into it from a previous account can be problematic. It might require you to reboot the machine into safe mode, log in as administrator and take ownership of certain files and folders in order to be able to copy them to the new location.

[tailstrikecharles]

Listen to the Gertrude.

Complete change of ownership of a computer is about the one case in which I would recommend, and have done, "wipe the disk and reinstall Windows".

As a bonus, that gets rid of all Fred Smith's viruses, and all Fred Smith's illegal kiddie porn, and no doubt other stuff that neither of us has even thought of.

recommended.

\It only takes a minute (and by minute, I mean two hours) but the piece of mind earned (as well as added reliability, speed) is priceless.

How much time has he wasted with "Fred Smith" that could have been better spent?

[BOAC]

Ah! Time is never wasted!

Anyway - all sorted - he is now running as login in his own name with a user folder called Fred Smith (no real hardship so I'm going no further) and all his 'old' settings as he wants them.

Thanks all.

[BOAC]

I wonder if, now I have sorted out the immediate issue, someone knows

I have changed the reg owner key and now have him logging on to his own name, but Windows is still calling for the 'Fred Smith' user folder. Where do I find the pointer for this setting so I can redirect the 'puter to a folder with his own name?

I assume it would not be anywhere as 'Fred Smith' but as some code?

[Saab Dastard]

Search the registry for "Fred Smith".

It might also / alternatively be stored as the SID for FS.

SD

[BOAC]

SD - reliable as ever - thanks - that is it. I had not come across 'SID' before but the first Google hit took me straight to the reg key.

Since this info needs to be there before user logon do I assume it is merged from allusers/ntuser.dat?

Is there any way I can view allusers/ntuser.dat (importing to regedit??) without screwing up my own registry?

[Mike-Bracknell]

1) Log in as an administrator who's not the user in question
2) Take a copy of the offending folder in question and delete it.
3) Go into the registry, find the SID, and delete the registry key with the SID.
4) Log in as the user in question and let it create it's own folder
5) Copy all the items except NTUSER.DAT from #2 into the folder in #4

[BOAC]

MB - I reckon I can get away with just changing the SID stuff to correct folder? Would that not work? The folder in use is absolutely correct, just the wrong 'name', so I would copy it all to a correctly named folder and then make the reg change via a different user.

Any ideas on
Since this info needs to be there before user logon do I assume it is merged from allusers/ntuser.dat?
AND
Is there any way I can view allusers/ntuser.dat (importing to regedit??) without screwing up my own registry?

That is what is bothering me - if the SID info comes from there I canna change it.

[Mike-Bracknell]

You probably could, but i've not investigated whether the SID is also kept in NTUSER.DAT.
I do know that if you don't get it quite right it'll create a folder with (1) appended to it though - hence my solution which allows Windows to do the hard work

[Saab Dastard]

Map User account names to SIDs:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

SD