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Changing System Folder Names ....

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by outrageous1

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First hand, this is the first post I have made to technical Q & A and I apologize in advance if I've put it under the wrong category.

I recently obtained a "new-to-me" system that I would like personalize to myself, not what it was set to from the fresh install of Win XP prior to my receiving it. What I would like to do is change the folder name ... "C:\documents and settings\me" to read ... "C:\documents and settings\*my chosen name*".
Besides reformatting again, is there a way that you can change this? ... Right clicking on the folder and choosing to rename gives the message "this is a windows system folder and cannot be moved or renamed"
I know that you can change the registered user name via registry tweak, however, this does not change this folder's name. Also, changing the name in the user account only changes the documents folder in my computer. Any help would be wonderful.

Thank-you in advance.

3 replies

by tosh74

setup a new user for yourself. right click my computerm select MANAGE. This will open a new console. Select LOCAL USERS AND GROUPS and open the USERS folder. Right click in the right hand pane and create a new user for yourself. Make sure that you make yourself a member of the Administrators Group. Reboot then logon as your new user. You should be able to delete the me user. now to clean up the 'me' user profile. Right click my computer and select PROPERTIES. Select the ADVANCED tab and click the SETTINGS button for the USER PROFILES area. Now highlight the 'me' user and delete the profile. Viola your machine is now yours.

by estechnical

The easiest way for you would be to re-load windows and then through the process you will have the chance to put your name in. If you just reload to the same directory the old name, "Me" will remain and your new will come up on initial boot. Then if you like any of the setup (Favorites etc..)from "me" you can copy and paste over. No losses! Good Luck!!

by sgt_shultz

as you have discovered, the folder you are referring to as 'me' is a user 'profile' folder.
you could reinstall xp to fix this but much easier to add a new user account (which means new profile folder), name of your choice, as suggested by tosh.
or you could temporarily create a new profile and log in with it to 'free up' the old profile folder. you could rename it, then 'redirect' your old folder to use it, i believe. (thing is, betcha that folder is not the only thing microsoft will name with that name. you may find your outlook express account and such also by that name...) all would be theorically rename-able from another admin account but mostly academic...
Caution: all your stuff from My Documents, anything sitting on you old Desktop, and maybe your mail and address are in that profile folder. I wouldn't delete if for quite a while until i was happy i had all my stuff in my new profile.
so you may not want to blast away your original profile until you find what you need out of there.
i do agree that renaming the folder is hard way to go and fraught with unknown gotchas. but you could easily experiment and just be willing to use the new profile if the old gets messed up.
Check out User Accounts in Control Panel.
Also System/Advanced/User Profiles. to see all what you got for tools to play with the profiles.
you can delele, copy, maybe rename? there also...

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