Question Deleting Old User Folder

[shmuel1614]

Hi.
So I just did all the steps necessary to change my \Users\ user Folder and I now have both the new and old folders with the same files inside :C\ by the looks of it. I was wondering if I could delete the old folder after doing so?

 

[Lutfij]

If you moved the Users folder from one drive to another(i.e, drive C to Drive D) then you shouldn't be seeing double, more like the entire folder moves to the new destination with the contents of said folder. Did you right click on each folder within Users folder>Properties>Location and then changed the destination of the folder?

 

[shmuel1614]

If you moved the Users folder from one drive to another(i.e, drive C to Drive D) then you shouldn't be seeing double, more like the entire folder moves to the new destination with the contents of said folder. Did you right click on each folder within Users folder>Properties>Location and then changed the destination of the folder?

I simply changed the user name in the \Users\ folder (e.g from Samue to Samuel cause windows is dumb with names). So I opened a new Admin account, changed the old folder name to the new folder name I desire, changed the RegEdit (ProfileSomethingPath) to the new user name instead of the old one and then mklink'd the old name to the new name. Now I have the old and new folder inside my C:\Users\ when I only want to see the new one. Both folders have the same content but I worry that deleting the old folder would do anything.
I didn't move my users folder to a different drive, just changed the name of the user.

 

[USAFRet]

changed the RegEdit (ProfileSomethingPath) to the new user name

You do know that the user name exists in MANY places in the registry.
Probably hundreds.

 

[shmuel1614]

You do know that the user name exists in MANY places in the registry.
Probably hundreds.

in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ (myuserSID)

 

[USAFRet]

in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ (myuserSID)

Search the Registry for the old username.
Dozens of places, at least.
_ROOT
_USER
_MACHINE
_USERS

Those reg entries are going to be looking for something that no longer exists.

 

[shmuel1614]

Search the Registry for the old username.
Dozens of places, at least.
_ROOT
_USER
_MACHINE
_USERS

Those reg entries are going to be looking for something that no longer exists.

So... does that mean I can delete it from the file explorer ?

 

[USAFRet]

So... does that mean I can delete it from the file explorer ?

Well no.
I expect many things will break.

What I would have done?
Create a new user account with the desired name.
Move personal docs as needed.
Reinstall applications as needed.
Delete the old user account.

 

[shmuel1614]

Well no.
I expect many things will break.

What I would have done?
Create a new user account with the desired name.
Move personal docs as needed.
Reinstall applications as needed.
Delete the old user account.

Considering the fact that I simply cba to reinstall applications just for a name change, do you reckon that leaving both user folders present will still break things? Or should I just revert everything to how it was with the old user only?
Also going to repeat myself here, I did do mklink /d "C:\Users\OldUser C:\Users\NewUser" which should just link these two folders together with all files?