user profiles and accounts

[James W. Long]

system: xp home
machine name: jennifer
profile named: jennifer\dianne
profile stored at c:\documents and settings\dianne
user account is jennifer.

machine used to be named dianne. was renamed to jennifer.
dianne used to log in on this pc but pc was moved. now jennifer logs in
instead.

some things still show up as dianne even tho user account is jennifer.

we dont want the dianne account or her user profile on this machine anymore.
how can we make the profile "jennifer", stored at c:\documents and
settings\jennifer?
(we can rename machine if thats the problem.)

in user profiles, we cant copy dianne to jennier. its grayed out.

thank you in advance,
James Long

 

[NewScience]

How was the PC renamed from dianne to Jennifer?
How was jennifer created as a new user account. Was Control Panel | User
Accounts used?
Was Jennifer account suppose to access dianne's account files?
Was dianne account deleted?

 

[James W. Long]

How was the PC renamed from dianne to Jennifer?

in control panel->system, computer name tab.

How was jennifer created as a new user account. Was Control Panel | User
Accounts used?

I believe so. I believe she was put in as a user to facilitate her logging
on to
her own acount. but none the less, she uses the dianne profile stored in
dianne.
there is no unique profile for jennifer.

Was Jennifer account suppose to access dianne's account files?

everything in diannes was to become jennifers. yes.

Was dianne account deleted?

diannes user account? I think this is gone.
diannes profile? its there and is used by jennifer even now. see info
below.




I think If I rename the machine to "snork" as an example,
so that it is not named jennifer, I would be able to copy
diannes profile to a new one called jennifer. Is that correct?

this way we effectively transfer the dianne profile to jennifer.


I lied before. we DO need to keep the settings and things in
the profile.

thank you in advance again,
James Long


clarification: we need the information contained within, but prefer
not to have it NAMED dianne but rather Jennifer.

 

[Guest]

In general it's not a good practicce to name a computer after a person - if
you do, then (for example) you will have to change all the shared folders and
printers on it when that person leaves.

However, I don't think that has anything to do with your problem. What has
happened here is that the original user-account, named dianne, has been
renamed to jennifer. Renaming an account doesn't rename the profile (because
it would cause too many issues if it did) hence you end-up with a situation
where the profile-folder's name does not match the account.

The textbook answer is to create a new account for each new user, instead of
renaming exisitng accounts. Downside of course is that the new user has only
the default settings (inherited from the default profile) and so any
recently-installed programs may not have the required settings.

You can copy the files from one user-profile to another, but transferring
the settings (user registry-section) is inadvisable as it wil almost
certainly contain direct references to files within the old folder.

BTW, the reason the profile-copy is greyed-out is most likely that one of
the users is logged-on. You need to logon as Administrator (or any thrid
user) so the profile isn't open.

 

[James W. Long]

Ian:

awesome.
in fact the shared folders are part of the problem. you
hit it right on the head.

ok. I remember now. so if i go to safe mode and become administrator
I should be able to copy dianne profile to jennifer.

I dont ever remember renaming diannes user account,
(can you do that?)
but somehow thats the case it appears, because there is only 1 profile
(as the old name dianne) and 1 user as Jennifer, who uses it, oddly.

jennifer already has a user account so cant really make a new one
with that name...unless its different, for instance jenn. or Jxxx where
xxx is her last name. still as you say in the new profile some things
will have to be reloaded. I can handle that.

if I copy the dianne profile to jxxx after creating the new jxxx user
then it should be mostly ok as long as I dont delete the old
dianne profile, right?

Thank you.