Comments for Why can't I change user-specific folder and variable names?

Comment from Ryan on 2009-10-23

2009-10-23T21:05:28Z

Those are the Simple solutions...

However, he was getting to a solution to rename the variables (*though i have no idea how stable things will be after that, and i would not recommend it*) but as he found out, Windows stores separate registries for User and System. The User registry is located in %userprofile%\NTUSER.DAT and the System registries are in %systemroot%\system32\config under the names SOFTWARE, SYSTEM, DEFAULT, SAM, and SECURITY. You can read and edit these files using a registry hive tool. A Google search of "registry hive editor" should be enough to find dozens of such programs. Some are free, some are not.

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Comment from SRay on 2009-04-23

2009-04-23T12:56:41Z

Another consideration is encryption: if you have encrypted files XP will have generated keys based on the user. Copying them to a new user requires care!

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A comment on: Why can't I change user-specific folder and variable names?

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Comment from Mark on 2009-04-16

2009-04-16T11:28:44Z

That's what I would have suggested but I would add one warning. If you create a new user and move over all the files from My Documents you will still have a lot of files in the Application Data and Local Settings folders which are easy to move but not necessarily easy to find which you wouldn't want to lose such as stored emails, address books, browser bookmarks and more. So unless you know how to find and copy those you might want to put up with that not so desirable name on your folders.

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A comment on: Why can't I change user-specific folder and variable names?

Tech Questions? Get Answers! - Ask Leo! ... by Leo Notenboom
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