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Renaming roaming user profile folders

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Wednesday, September 7, 2011 4:42 PM | 1 vote

From time to time a user will get married or whatever, so the username needs to change.  I use ADUC for that, easy enough.  But I'd also like to rename their profile and home folders.  Until now my process has been to rename the user, go to their Profile tab, change the username-specific portion to %username% and then do a 1st time login so it generates the profile.  Once that's done, I copy the contents of the old profile folder (minus the ntuser.*  and related files)to the newly created one, then update the NTFS permisssions and ownership for all sub-contents to match the new user account.  Or least I believe this is my process, though it's been a while since I've done it.  I used to just leave the user profile folders as the old name but at this point would rather find an efficient way to rename them instead. 

Google searches mostly bring back people posting about renaming their local PC profiles.  Though the concepts are the same, I am hoping to hear from people who work with AD reguarly and have an established process for this.  Perhaps a script even. 

Thanks very much. 

All replies (5)

Monday, September 19, 2011 6:41 AM âś…Answered

Hi,

Sorry for the delay.

For the step 3, the value CentralProfile pointed to the network path. As the network folder is renamed, system will not able to find it as it still point to the original folder in registry key. So we will need to modify it manually. If user using eifferent computers, I think it needs to be edited on each computer  The SID are the same so you may try to set a group policy to change the value for the account, so it will be changed on any computer the user logged on.

Meanwhile I'm thinking whether "change the folder name but keep the original share name" will be a workaround?

In addition, puppy grows up really fast :(

 

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Wednesday, September 7, 2011 4:45 PM

Just an addendum, I do recognize that simply renmaing the user doesn't change their SID info so when I say I do a first-time login it's actually just to generate the profile folder.  But it's been a while since I've done this, so I forget now whwether the ntuser files just copy themselves over again, or do they regenate from scratch ro soething.  Anyway, just wanted to add this point.  Thanks! 

Thursday, September 8, 2011 8:08 AM | 1 vote

Hi,

This will help but I cannot confirm which is easier to be done:

1. Change the user name in AD Users and Computers, including display name, logon name etc.

2. Change the roaming folder name from "aaa" to "bbb". Also change the roaming profile path in AD Users and Computers to new folder.

Note: You will need to take ownership of the folder aaa, add Domain Administrator - Full Control, then assign the ownership back to user.

3. Edit the registry key on client side:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT \CurrentVersion\ProfileList

Find the SID belong to the target user, change the CentralProfile value to the new location. The original should be \server\roaming\aaa.v2, then the new one will be \server\roaming\bbb.v2.

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Tuesday, September 13, 2011 8:28 AM

If there is any progress please just let us know.TechNet Subscriber Support in forum |If you have any feedback on our support, please contact [email protected].

Tuesday, September 13, 2011 1:23 PM

Hi Shaon,

First of all, that's one hell of a cute puppy you've got there.  is that your dog or just a profile picture? :)

Sorry about the slow post reply.  I'm often pulled away into other things for days or weeks  before I even get back to a post I made. 

Normally when I do things I do items 1 and 2 as you suggsted above, although for #2 there is a GPO that lets you auto-add admins with full control to the NTFS permissions for newly created user profile folders so I use that. 

Step 3 confuses me though.  How could changing the registry on a client PC affect the user's ability to have ownership and access to their new profile on the server?  It's only that I don't understand the effect of doing so.  For example, what if this user moves around to many different PC's, does one have to chnage HKLM for them all?  Or is this step just for the one PC the user is currently logged into, and after doing this step things will be fine from then on for all future logins on other PC's?  Or what? :)

Damn that's a cute puppy though.  Makes me want to get a dog.