Change the username in Windows 7

[TheGreatOne]

Upon installation of Windows Seven, an administrator account is created that takes the user name that he was assigned.

If one wishes to change the name, it must proceed in 2 steps:


1) Change the User name that appears on the Welcome screen and the Start menu:

• To Start then Control Panel
  
  
• Click on User Accounts and Family Safety (User Accounts and Family Safety)
  
  
• Click on user account (User Accounts) and then on Edit your account name (Change your account name)
  
  
• In the next window, type the new name and click Rename

[TheGreatOne]

2) Change the name in the registry:

We must also change the name in the registry, so that in C:\Users, this is the good name that appears.

• To Start then Run , type regedit, and then validate with Enter
  
  
• In the registry, deploy the key:
  
  

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion

• Click on CurrentVersion and in the right pane, look for the Value RegisteredOwner
  
  
• Make a double-click RegisteredOwner and change the name in the data value , then OK
  
  
• Close the registry.

[Erskine]

Nice explanation TheGreatOne but i think the first method is good we should not go for the registry method better is first take the backup of registry .

[lizzi]

this is exactly the kind of answer I was looking for...I followed the steps, but unfortunately its still showing C:\Users\Willeh\ Willeh is the person that owned the pc before me...I'd like to change it to Liz or Lizzi as seeing Willeh all the time is rather off putting. Any suggestions?

[Shikhar]

Both of the above steps (control panel and registry tweak) dint worked for you ? Strange.. Anyways, better go to control panel, User Accounts and Family Safety and create a new Administrator Account with your name and delete the previous one. Thats it.

[timbrownxy]

Go to the File menu click the Export option to save backups and with any unit of the system. Reg and can restore this backup is the File menu with the option to import. That is it user accounts and family safety and create a new administrator account with your name and delete the previous.

[wt73]

Same problem here. Bought a netbook, changed reg values and Still came up w/ "tianna" as my name. I found out how to fix it though..
I enabled the Admin account, logged into it in Safe Mode, then went to C:/Users and changed "tianna" to my name. Would not work in regular boot because some of the files were open, but if you log into the Admin account in Safe Mode and navigate to C:/Users you will see the previous (owner's) name on the User account. Change it to w/e you want.
I had previously changed the user account name through the regular user account channels, but for some reason I still saw "tianna" everywhere. This method solved the issue.

[JennyK]

I have a new computer configured as "user". I changed the name in Control Panel to Jenny, it shows up on the folder on my desktop, on the Start menu, on the login screen. But in WinExplorer it shows c:\users\user\my documents, etc. I tried all of the above ... went to Safe Mode but the Rename option was not available neither thru F2, right mouse, or click twice; I backed up the registry, changed "registeredOwner" to Jenny, rebooted. Neither of these helped. I have since created a new user account (Tim) and activated the Guest account. My last option, I guess, would be to create a second Jenny account with a different name (Jenny2? Hate that idea), and transfer all my account info over. Any other suggestions? Also, to note, I have a padlock symbol on the "user" account (might have something to do with trying unsuccessfully to set up a network?). Thanks.

[DakshaMira]

So far there is no another solution to change the name to create the another administrator account and set up it according to requirement of yours.