I cannot rename a user account

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.general (More info?)

Hello,

We had a user whose profile became corrupt. We created a new profile with a
different name, and verified that the issues we were having did not occur
with the new profile. These are local profiles, we have no domains or Active
Directory.

We deleted the old user account and also the directories under Documents and
Settings.

Now when I go to Computer Management/Local Users and Groups and try to
rename the new user account to the old account name, I receive an error
message that I cannot rename the account. Is there something in the registry
that needs to be deleted?

I have rebooted multiple times, and I am logging in as either Administrator
or another user with Admin level rights, not the user in question.
--
kgoldsmith

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.general (More info?)

Create the new account then while logged on as another user (with
administrative rights) Control Panel|System|Advanced|User Profiles|Settings,
select your oldprofile, Copy To, Browse to
%systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\newprofile
Change "Permitted to use:" to "newprofile" OK.


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

"kgoldsmith" wrote:
| Hello,
|
| We had a user whose profile became corrupt. We created a new profile with
a
| different name, and verified that the issues we were having did not occur
| with the new profile. These are local profiles, we have no domains or
Active
| Directory.
|
| We deleted the old user account and also the directories under Documents
and
| Settings.
|
| Now when I go to Computer Management/Local Users and Groups and try to
| rename the new user account to the old account name, I receive an error
| message that I cannot rename the account. Is there something in the
registry
| that needs to be deleted?
|
| I have rebooted multiple times, and I am logging in as either
Administrator
| or another user with Admin level rights, not the user in question.
| --
| kgoldsmith

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.general (More info?)

If client for Microsoft Networks in not installed you will be unable to
rename user accounts (though you won't get an error, it just wont work). So
possibly take it out and put it back in?

Also in the future, it might be easier to not delete the user account but
instead to create a new profile with another user and then associate that
profile with the old user account. To do this there are 3 steps you must
complete (most posts and Microsoft KB's leave out the third and absolutely
critical step). They are:

1. Give the old user full control NTFS permissions of the new profile (and
replace permissions on child folders).
2. in regedit go here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

In the left pane there will be a sub key named with a SID for each account
on the machine. Click each subfolder and look in the right pane at the
string ProfileImagePath. When you see the ProfileImagePath whose value is
the users old profile path edit it to be the path to the new profile.

Now the reason the third step is so important is if you don't do it and the
new profile is used by a non admin account when you log on you will get non
stop explorer.exe has generated an error and has to close messages. That's
what was happening to me and I was stumped until I read a post explaining:
The ntuser.dat file is what the HKEY_Current_User key in the registry is
created from. And even though you gave the user NTFS full control to the
ntuser.dat file you still have to grant the user permission on the actual
registry key as the NTFS perms don't effect that. So you need to open
regedit (regedt32 if pre xp) and highlight the HKEY_Users tab. Then go to
file load hive and browse to the ntuser.dat file in the new profile. Give
the hive any name you want. Then right click the hive, go to permissions and
add the old user with full control (and go to advabced to reset permissions
on sub keys). Then highlight the hive and go to file unload hive (if you
dont do this the profile wont load). Then you're all set.

I hope this helps (and I hope it made sense).

--
Nick Staff

Either I want to be a better person than I am
or I am a better person than I want to be.


"kgoldsmith" wrote:

> Hello,
>
> We had a user whose profile became corrupt. We created a new profile with a
> different name, and verified that the issues we were having did not occur
> with the new profile. These are local profiles, we have no domains or Active
> Directory.
>
> We deleted the old user account and also the directories under Documents and
> Settings.
>
> Now when I go to Computer Management/Local Users and Groups and try to
> rename the new user account to the old account name, I receive an error
> message that I cannot rename the account. Is there something in the registry
> that needs to be deleted?
>
> I have rebooted multiple times, and I am logging in as either Administrator
> or another user with Admin level rights, not the user in question.
> --
> kgoldsmith