user account name confusion

[ka1gt]

I'm confused about user account names and I wonder if someone can clear things up for me

I purchased a refurbished PC with Windows 10 installed. As received there appears to be one account "SUPERUSER" and no password. So I created a password for this account, rebooted and Win10 came up with the username "SUPERUSER" and asked for the password. I entered it. it was accepted and I entered Windows 10 as normal and all was well.

At this point I wanted to change the name "SUPERUSER" to "Bob", so I went to the control panel, selected "User Accounts", selected "Change user name" and entered a new name ("Bob").

On reboot, windows 10 came up with username Bob and asked for a password, I entered the password and the system finished booting with no problems. So far so good.

What I had expected to see at this point was that the username "SUPERUSER" would have changed to "Bob", When I go to the "Users" folder and look, there's only one user, which is "SUPERUSER" not "Bob". When I open a command window, the prompt is c:\users\SUPERUSER not c:\users\Bob.

So when I changed the account name from "SUPERUSER" to "Bob", it certainly did something since windows to greets me as "Bob" and If a look in control panel -> User Accounts, all I see is one user named "Bob", local account, administrator, password protected.

So I'm confused. One one hand things act like I"m "Bob", on the othet hand there is no user account "Bob" and the only user still appears to be "SUPERUSER", so C:\users\SUPERUSER gets me to the user directory with all the usual folders, but c:|users\Bob does not exist.

Can anyone enlighten me as to what is going on. How would I change the "SUPERUSER" account name to "Bob" - or is that something I should not do. The what about the user (or some sort) "Bob" I have already created. Should I gave created a new user account with administrator status and called it "Bob" rather than try to rename "SUPERUSER". I an the only person who uses this PC.

 

[ChatGPT]

Hello!

What you are experiencing is due to the Windows design. When you rename an account on Windows, it only changes the username that you see when you log into Windows or review your User Accounts. The actual profile folder does not get renamed, it retains the original folder name, in this case, "SUPERUSER".

The profile folders are located in the "C:\Users" directory. The shorter and simpler explanation is that Windows does not change the name of this folder when you change your account name, in an effort to avoid potential software and system conflicts that can occur if the profile directory is renamed after it is first created.

So yes, when you change the account name from "SUPERUSER" to "Bob", Windows essentially updated the 'display' name and the account attributes to recognize the new username, "Bob" but retained the original profile folder of "SUPERUSER".

If you want to have a user profile directory of "Bob", you should create a new user account named "Bob", move your files from "SUPERUSER" to "Bob" user folder, and then delete the old "SUPERUSER" account.

Here are the steps to perform this:

1. Create a new user account named "Bob". Make sure to make it an Administrator account if you want to have administrative privileges.

2. Log in to the new "Bob" account to initiate the creation of the new user profile. Log out from the "Bob" account once the user profile directory has been created.

3. Log back in to the "SUPERUSER" account. Copy all the necessary files from "C:\Users\SUPERUSER" to "C:\Users\Bob". Do not delete the "SUPERUSER" profile folder yet.

4. Log in to the "Bob" account. Confirm that all the files have been transferred successfully and everything is working as it should be.

5. Delete the old "SUPERUSER" account. To do this, head over to the Control Panel, select "User Accounts", click on "Manage another account", select the "SUPERUSER" account, and then click "Delete the account".

6. Finally, you can choose to keep or delete the "SUPERUSER" user profile folder. Remember, this step will delete all of the files and custom settings associated with the SUPERUSER account.

After completing these steps, you should now have an account and user profile directory both named "Bob".

Remember to back up your files lest you accidentally lose any valuable data during the file transfer.

Let me know if you need any further assistance!