Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Changing your computer name or your login name is easy, but there are certain limits. I'll show you how, and then discuss what cannot be changed.
I recently married and need to change the name on my computer - not just the name of the computer - where do I go to change it?
•
As your question alludes to, it depends somewhat on which name you mean: your computer's name, or your login name.
Computer name: easy to change.
Your login name: easy to change - mostly. There's one part that, when it comes down to it, is pretty close to impossible to change.
•
Changing The Computer Name
Right click on Computer or My Computer, on your desktop or Start menu, and click on Properties. Click on Advanced system settings. In the resulting dialog click on the Computer Name tab:
Click on the Change... button:
As you can see all you need do is enter your new computer name, and press OK.
The change may not take effect until your next reboot.
Changing Your Login Account Name
In Control Panel, click on User Accounts:
Click on Change your account name:
As you can see, you can enter a new name and press Change Name to change it.
Seems simple, yet there's a catch.
What you Can't Change
When a user account is created in Windows, the login name assigned is used to create folders specifically for that user. For example on my machine I created my login account as "LeoN", and therefore I have on my machine:
As the folder which contains My Documents, my start menu, desktop and all my other account-specific information.
Even if you change your login name to something completely different, that folder name will not change. It'll still be associated with your account, and it'll all still work, but even if I change my login name to something completely different, like "Betty", my account-specific folder will still be "LeoN". (There are various reasons why this must be, but regardless of the reasons it just is.)
There may be other places where that original account login name is preserved even after a name change; the account-specific folder is just the most obvious.
The only way I know of to change this name is to create a new account with the new name, move whatever data and settings you might want to preserve from one account to the other, and then delete the old account. This tends to be very error prone as various programs that you've been running will have accumulated data in your user-specific folders that you essentially cannot move.
Of course the other option is to reinstall Windows from scratch and use the new name from the start.
Either approach is very painful and typically not worth it.
My honest recommendation is to live with it until you get a new computer someday and start with your new name on that machine.
Article C4464 - September 26, 2010
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
Also-- what Leo said only applies to the local computer's info. This is different from 1) your e-mail account name (which can be different from the display name), and 2) your corporate LAN login (if that applies to you).
Those would have to be changed by your corporate IT department-- if they are willing to do so. Where I work, we have a policy that the login credentials and e-mail address do not change, EVER. If, on your first day, you are given the identity "jane.doe6" then you stay "jane.doe6" forever-- when you get married (or divorced!) and become Jane Smith, your e-mail is still "jane.doe6@----" (We will change your display name, so e-mail headers read "Jane Smith " however). When plain-old "jane.doe" leaves, you don't get to lose your numeral 6, etc. That may sound obnoxious, but you would not believe the behind-the-scenes chaos we had before that policy was put into effect.
Posted by: Janet at September 28, 2010 11:35 AMAnother option for changing the C:\Users\..., is possible if you look for something like Recovery Manager from HP, or Dell's version or whatever. On my HP laptop, it is a program by Cyberlink, licensed by HP. From there, you can restore the computer to factory default by clicking on system recovery. You will be asked if you wish to return the computer to its original factory condition, like turning the computer on for the first time.
Posted by: Valerian Dec at September 28, 2010 11:57 AMIn doing so, all settings, added software, stored emails, bookmarks etc will be lost, so back up your music, pics, and stuff you want to keep. You will have the opportunity to name the computer whatever you wish from there, provided your computer has the recovery manager. Be sure to update everything as soon as you are up and running again. Best of luck.
don't forget, you Could use 'Account Manager' to create a completely new account with the new name, then work through transferring all personal settings - some you can do by copying from the c:\users\'old-user' directories... - some require a registry hack.
Posted by: James Ferris at September 28, 2010 2:45 PMThen when done, you can delete the old name account.
Done.
Reformat and reinstall
Posted by: steven at September 28, 2010 7:51 PMWhen I want to create a new user account I do all the steps, but when it comes down to "type a name for your account name" I do, but then it always says Specified account name is not vialed cannot contain...........and so on. I just want to create a user acount for my hp
Posted by: Aaron at November 5, 2010 6:39 PM