Forum Discussion
Changed name of user folder and registry key, but now can't use that account.
I have two MS accounts, one user and one admin. One is mross after an email address, the other is Admin.
But the mross a/c is the actual admin user and Admin is a standard user. (This is because I initially installed Windows with just one local a/c called Admin and then decided to revert to my usual practice of running separate user and admin accounts.)
I made an error is creating them the wrong way round.
To fix this I changed the name of C:\users\admin to C:\users\marti and went to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList and found the right profile and edited the key ProfileImagePath to match.
After rebooting, when I try to log in to the modified account I get a message saying we can't log in to your account or something like that. If I dismiss the message I can access Windows but is wants to set up this account from fresh each time.
I was logged in as a proper administrator.
I have restored from a backup so I am sorted, I just wondered if there was a method that worked with an up-to-date version of Win 11 Pro 24H2. I know the method I used is risky but it worked a few months ago with only monor glitches which I was able to resolve.
It sounds like you made some changes to your user profiles and registry that are causing Windows to lose track of the account settings. The method you used—renaming the user folder and editing the registry—can definitely cause issues if not done carefully, especially since Windows ties the user profile to both the folder name and registry settings.
Go to Settings > Accounts > Family & other users.
Make sure your mross account is set as the Administrator.
If needed, change the account type for the Admin account to a Standard User (or vice versa).
Do not change folder names manually—let Windows manage that.
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It sounds like you made some changes to your user profiles and registry that are causing Windows to lose track of the account settings. The method you used—renaming the user folder and editing the registry—can definitely cause issues if not done carefully, especially since Windows ties the user profile to both the folder name and registry settings.
Go to Settings > Accounts > Family & other users.
Make sure your mross account is set as the Administrator.
If needed, change the account type for the Admin account to a Standard User (or vice versa).
Do not change folder names manually—let Windows manage that.