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After upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 10 Home my (local) user profile seems to be broken. So I want to create a new local profile but using the old user name. Therefore, I renamed the existing user profile (appended _Win7), renamed the user directory and changed the ProfileImagePath in the registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList). The profile seems to run fine under the new name (despite the things that were already broken before the renaming).

Now the problem: Windows doesn't let me create a new local user profile using the old profile's name. The error message is (translated from German): Enter a different user name.

How can I create a new profile using a former profile's name?

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  • Did you rename the actual user account, or only the profile directory?
    – u1686_grawity
    Nov 7, 2015 at 15:47
  • I renamed the user account as well, i.e. the login screen shows the new name for the old profile
    – Ignitor
    Nov 7, 2015 at 15:49
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    If you go to This PC, right click it, properties (or control panel->system) and go to advanced system settings, tab advanced, User Profiles, does it list there correctly as well?
    – LPChip
    Nov 7, 2015 at 15:54
  • @LPChip No! It doesn't! It still shows the old name! So the questions is how to really rename the user account in Windows 10?
    – Ignitor
    Nov 7, 2015 at 16:01
  • If you right click This PC, and choose Manage you'll go to Computer Management. From there, unvold Local Users and Groups, Click Users. Is the user here incorrect too? If so, right click and rename. If not, head back to the other window, click copy to copy to a new, then click delete to delete the old.
    – LPChip
    Nov 7, 2015 at 16:27

1 Answer 1

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Thanks to LPChips comment, I found out that the user account wasn't really renamed using Windows 10 Home's system control panel. It was basically jsut the display name which was changed. So I used wmic useraccount where name='<OLDNAME>' rename <NEWNAME> (found here) to really rename the account and then I could create a new user with the old account name.

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