When you create a new user account in Windows, a profile folder is created in the “Users” folder on your PC.
If you create a local account then the full name is used as the name for the profile folder. If you use or create a Microsoft account, the first 5 characters of your Microsoft account name are used.
You cannot simply change the name of the profile folder in Windows. To do this you need to perform a number of steps.
Changing the profile folder is possible, but can only be done by following the steps in this article. There is no official way to do this, for example through the settings.
Before you go any further, I recommend you get one Create a Windows restore point.
Rename profile folder in Windows 11 or Windows 10
To get started, you must log in with a different administrator account than the one for which you want to change the profile folder name. So a second administrator account must be available or you must create one.
Then log in with this second administrator account. Now we will request the SID of the account whose profile folder name you want to change. A SID is a (“Security identifier”) which is a unique value used to identify each security entity that can be authenticated by the Windows operating system.
Open the Command Prompt as administrator. In the taskbar, search for “Command Prompt” and right-click on it. In the menu, click on “Run as administrator”.
Please note that all following screenshots are for illustrative purposes and are therefore examples.
In the Command Prompt type:
wmic get useraccount get name, sid
Check the SID of the user account whose profile folder you want to rename.
In this example, you will see the SID in the SID column. You must copy this SID and store it temporarily. We will need this SID later.
Now open the Windows registry. Right-click on the Start button. In the menu click on Run. In the run window type: regedit.exe
In the registry editor go to the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
Search the list of SIDs in the “ProfileList” for an identical SID that we saved previously. Click here. Again this is an example.
Double-click “ProfileImagePath”. Now change the profile folder name. You leave “c:\users\” intact and only change the profile folder name to a new one.
In my example I have “c:\users\pctip” changed to “c:\users\pctipsinfo“. Click OK.
Now open Windows Explorer. Go to the C:\Users\ folder and click on the profile folder name you want to change. Enter the new name that you also adjusted in the register.
So in this example I change “pctip” to “pctipsinfo”.
Now log in with the user you are using profile folder name has changed.
You have now successfully renamed the profile folder to Windows 11 or Windows 10. Thanks for reading!