How can I force Windows 7 to update the user profile path?

Question

I renamed a user profile to a new name. This worked but when I look into the folder path, the old name is being used. Why? And how can I make the folder pathname the same as the new name?

Answer 1

This might work for you:

It let's you relocate your user profile. So you simply relocate it to a folder that has the name you want it to have and it will replace the old name.

Microsoft supplies a tool mklink which can create a symbolic link under Windows 7 just as the command ln under unix/linux. Below is an example about how to put user data on in a non-system folder using mklink in Windows 7.

• Enable administrator account and set a password for it. You can refer How to enable or disable administrator account in windows 7
• Logoff and login with administrator account
• Relocate your user data to other non-system partion, for example from C:\users\J to D:\users\J

• Use mklink to create a symbolic link from C:\users\J to D:\users\J

  mklink /D C:\Users\J D:\users\J

• Re-login use your own account,you will find nothing changed, but in fact your physical user data is on drive D.

• Done. The next time you re-install your OS, just use the same user name, remove C:\users\J then run the command of step 3 again then your user data is back.

Answer 2

Just fyi, there is a GUI to make the creation of symbolic links easier - symlinker

With this utility you can use the symlink application Microsoft Windows has well hidden inside the cmd.exe app.

The goal is just make it easier to create symbolic links, hard links, or directory junctions, using a pretty simple interface, so no more bogus command line to do it...

This application needs .Net Framework 3.5 to run (SP1 recommended)