XP User Accounts

My first post here, but I've been reading [H] for years now. Great site.

I recently made the switch from Win 2k Executive edition to XP Pro (mostly because I lost my 2k disk), so I'm not all that familiar / comfortable with it yet.

During instilation, it asked me what my name was. Due to some poor information from a friend, I was under the impression that XP didn't actually have an "administrator" account, and instead, whatever name you entered here became the head admin account itself. So, I figured I'd like to have it set up just like 2k was, and so I would tell it my name was "Administrator" and then later I'd set up individual accounts later.

Well, it wouldn't let me, obviously, so I just said "Cronyx". After it was done installing everything, I later got the notion to use the name "Sysop" for the primary admin account.

Thinking that the "Cronyx" account was the only account on the box, and was basically the god admin account, I figured I'd just rename THAT one to "Sysop" and then create a new "Cronyx" account.

That was all well and fine, and I figured it was set up the way I wanted it.

Then about a month later, I loaded a game for multiplayer, and my default player name after installing it, before I told it what I wanted my name to be, was "Cronyx_2" and of course, I'm all "WTF?"

So I finally go into computer managment and look at these wierd account settings.

I see there IS an Administrator account, you just can't normally get to it. I enable it to show up on the login screen, and then I notice something odd...
"Sysop" is actually "Cronyx" and the NEW "Cronyx" is "Cronyx_2"

This... doesn't really matter, I guess... But it just bothers me. It's actively pissing me off to think about, all the time.

I've been playing around with it, and I can't figure out how to fix any of this. I don't want to just rename "Sysop" back to "Cronyx" and then delete "Cronyx_2" because the latter is where everything is installed, and there are various registry entries, etc etc, that are all locked into that account.

I guess I could just reinstall the damn OS and do it right this time, but that seems like over kill.

Any advice as to what I should do at this point would be appriciated. Thanks in advance for entertaining my bizzar anal retentive idiosyncrancies.

Edit:
PS, how do I change my avatar image? (on the forum, not in XP

First, I'd find different friends. Next, I'd log into the system using the real administrator account. Once you do that, you can rename, delete, change, etc any of the other accounts in the system to be whatever your going after. Problem solved.

As far as changing the logon icons, it's also done in the same User control area on the control panel.

I'd start by turning off the Welcome Screen and setting the control panel to classic view. At that point things should look pretty close to what you are used to with Windows 2000.

For managing user accounts I'd use the "Local Users and Groups" node found in "System Tools" in the "Computer Management" program instead of using the "User Accounts" icon in the Control Panel.

rcolbert said:

For managing user accounts I'd use the "Local Users and Groups" node found in "System Tools" in the "Computer Management" program instead of using the "User Accounts" icon in the Control Panel.

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Yes, this is true, for managing account, but he was asking about how to change his user icon.

I already tried that rename thing, and for the most part, it did work... However, the C:\Documents and Settings\ directory structure hasn't changed.

So then I tried deleting, as I really didn't need the account called "Sysop" anymore after larning it DID have an "Administrator" account.

Next, I tried renaming "Cronyx_2" (as it showed up in "Local Users and Groups" that is) to just "Cronyx" however that doesn't alter the "Documents and Settings" directory structure.

Before I deleted "Sysop" it got everything from "C:\Documents and Settings\Cronyx"

But now that I've renamed "Cronyx_2" to just "Cronyx" it's still getting everything from "C:\Documents and Settings\Cronyx_2" which just annoys the piss out of me.

By the way, just so that we're clear on the termanology... Could someone explain the official terms for these elements here?

What do we call the name that shows up on the login screen, and as opposed to that, what do we then call the name that is REALLY associated with the account?

Because as you'll remember, when I origionally renamed "Cronyx" to "Sysop" in the first place, it DID then thereafter show up as "Sysop" on the login screen, but that seems to be purely for asthetics. Almost like a profile name or something rather than a login name.

djnes said:

Yes, this is true, for managing account, but he was asking about how to change his user icon.

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Exactly, my avatar on the forum, not in Windows. The Windows one is self-explanitory.

djnes said:

Yes, this is true, for managing account, but he was asking about how to change his user icon.

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I wasn't speaking to that. I thought he specifically was talking about his forum Avatar, and it wasn't my intention to address that subject at all.

My advice was geared towards dealing with the user names since the actions he took using the default XP setup and control panel tools led to unexpected consequences. I was simply pointing to a tool that I thought would yield more predictable results.

rcolbert said:

I wasn't speaking to that. I thought he specifically was talking about his forum Avatar, and it wasn't my intention to address that subject at all.

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My bad, I think I accidently caused a bit of misdirection. The main body of my origional post is what this thread is about. The last question, where I ask how to change my FORUM avatar was added as an afterthought, and I don't really care if that question gets answered or not.

I'm just concerned about my windows problem

I misread that about the icons then. If you have noticed, no one has an avatar, because it's a unnecessary drain on bandwidth and storage space.

when you are on the loging screen with the icons and crap, you can hit crtl+alt+del twice in a row and log in old style.. and put administrator as the username..

it is a little hard to follow.. but if you want say make the my documents not go to cronyx_2? you can right click on the "my documents" folder adn then go to properties and tell it where you want it to go.. you can set it to go to a networked computer if you want.. it is very useful for businesses...

Cronyx said:

By the way, just so that we're clear on the termanology... Could someone explain the official terms for these elements here?

What do we call the name that shows up on the login screen, and as opposed to that, what do we then call the name that is REALLY associated with the account?
.

Click to expand...

I'll admit that I don't know if all the Windows domain attributes map directly to the local accounts, but it seems we're generally speaking about three things here: Logon Name, Display Name, and User Profile.

The folders under Documents and Settings are the user profiles, and once set for an account, the path typically doesn't change even though the Logon Name or Display Name might. It's pretty simple to copy profiles but it's difficult to explain in a way that makes sense. The key rules are this: You can't fully copy a profile if you are logged on as the user whose profile you want to either copy to or from. You must reset permissions on copied profiles to ensure that the user receiving the copy of the profile has ownership and full control of the contents of the profile. Simply renaming a profile folder will likely result in that profile no longer being used, and a new profile being generted upon next logon.

djnes said:

I misread that about the icons then. If you have noticed, no one has an avatar, because it's a unnecessary drain on bandwidth and storage space.

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Well... if you want to take that ideaology to the realm of extreme absurdidty, then so are ALL the graphics on this site, save for the pictures of parts for articles. We should all be using the lynx browser.

rcolbert said:

<Very good explination>

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So... in other words, if I wanted to avoid a f*ck-ton of hassle and truble, just reinstall windows?

Cronyx said:

Well... if you want to take that ideaology to the realm of extreme absurdidty, then so are ALL the graphics on this site, save for the pictures of parts for articles. We should all be using the lynx browser.

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You're welcome to read through the Forum Feedback area if you want full discussions of why avatars / sig images / sig vb code / etc is disabled. In a nutshell, allowing them only helps retarded 13-year-old versions of Jackson Pollock to see the light of day. No offense to any of the aforementioned in singular, but we don't want that combination here.

Cronyx said:

So... in other words, if I wanted to avoid a f*ck-ton of hassle and truble, just reinstall windows?

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Pick the lesser of two evils as applicable to your environment. I my case I'd sort out the accounts because it'd likely take me less time than a complete OS reinstall and subsequent reinstall of my applications. In your case, you might feel that it is more efficient or simply cleaner to have a "do over." Either way is a perfectly valid approach.

A complete OS reinstall isn't something I had even considered to be honest.

rcolbert said:

Pick the lesser of two evils as applicable to your environment. I my case I'd sort out the accounts because it'd likely take me less time than a complete OS reinstall and subsequent reinstall of my applications. In your case, you might feel that it is more efficient or simply cleaner to have a "do over." Either way is a perfectly valid approach.

A complete OS reinstall isn't something I had even considered to be honest.

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Alright, well, how about this then... Would deleting ALL accounts (beside the Administrator account) and recreating them over again... "break" anything?

I'm sure we ALL just LOVE Steam... </sarcasm> and I'm not exactly sure how much crap it puts into you windows profile.

I've had friends turn HL2 into a coaster for much less sevior offences.

That's just one example though. To be honest, I haven't even installed much of anything after I installed XP (about a month or two ago) mostly because I was procrastinating having to fix this problem. So.. yeah.

Cronyx said:

Alright, well, how about this then... Would deleting ALL accounts (beside the Administrator account) and recreating them over again... "break" anything?

I'm sure we ALL just LOVE Steam... </sarcasm> and I'm not exactly sure how much crap it puts into you windows profile.

I've had friends turn HL2 into a coaster for much less sevior offences.

That's just one example though. To be honest, I haven't even installed much of anything after I installed XP (about a month or two ago) mostly because I was procrastinating having to fix this problem. So.. yeah.

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You likely wouldn't break anything. You may need to re-enter your steam logon information.

You can also start by logging on as administrator, creating a new account exactly like you want it, and then try using the control panel "system" applet (in classic view), selecting the "advanced" tab, clicking the settings button in user profiles and try the "copy to" function. You may need to logon with the new ID at least once before the profile exists, but you must do the copy as the "administrator" or an equally powerful account that owns neither the source or destination profile. At that point you could delete all the extra accounts and just use the newly created account with the copied profile information. Don't know why I didn't point you to the copy to button earlier. Probably because I like to do things the hard way.

Cronyx said:

Well... if you want to take that ideaology to the realm of extreme absurdidty, then so are ALL the graphics on this site, save for the pictures of parts for articles. We should all be using the lynx browser.

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I'll go easy, since your new here, but you really need to understand how this forum works, and the way it's run to understand avatars. That being said, when you don't understand something, keep the cocky, know-it-all comments to yourself until you do, in fact, know-it-all. If you have a problem with the forum, the lack of avatars, and usage of other graphics, take it up with Kyle.

djnes said:

I'll go easy, since your new here, but you really need to understand how this forum works, and the way it's run to understand avatars. That being said, when you don't understand something, keep the cocky, know-it-all comments to yourself until you do, in fact, know-it-all. If you have a problem with the forum, the lack of avatars, and usage of other graphics, take it up with Kyle.

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djnes, I think you guys got off to a bad start with your post #9. I can understand how when someone asks about avatars they might be put off by your reply. I think your statement was merely intended to be informative, but I can easily see it not being taken that way.

rcolbert said:

djnes, I think you guys got off to a bad start with your post #9. I can understand how when someone asks about avatars they might be put off by your reply. I think your statement was merely intended to be informative, but I can easily see it not being taken that way.

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I can see how it would have been taken that way. However, add that to the recent outbreak of noobs who bust in with know-it-all attitudes, our collective patiences have worn thin. Civility will be responded with civility on here. I'm a noob on several other forums, like VWVortex.com, etc. I always am polite and respectful, because I don't know very much compared to those people, and I want to learn or get my questions answered. It's amazing how far civility will get a person.

rcolbert said:

You likely wouldn't break anything. You may need to re-enter your steam logon information.

You can also start by logging on as administrator, creating a new account exactly like you want it, and then try using the control panel "system" applet (in classic view), selecting the "advanced" tab, clicking the settings button in user profiles and try the "copy to" function. You may need to logon with the new ID at least once before the profile exists, but you must do the copy as the "administrator" or an equally powerful account that owns neither the source or destination profile. At that point you could delete all the extra accounts and just use the newly created account with the copied profile information. Don't know why I didn't point you to the copy to button earlier. Probably because I like to do things the hard way.

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Yeah, I'd thought about copying it too, as least subconsciously, but didn't persue it for some reason.

Anyway, so I did try it as you suggested, but for some reason, everything is greyed out:



And yes, during this, I was indeed logged in as Administrator.

I thought there was nothing that Administrator couldn't do?

edit 1: Speaking of which, anyone know of any hack that disables Windows' ability to grey-out boxes? That would be like the ultimate useful mod.

Cronyx said:

Yeah, I'd thought about copying it too, as least subconsciously, but didn't persue it for some reason.

Anyway, so I did try it as you suggested, but for some reason, everything is greyed out:

And yes, during this, I was indeed logged in as Administrator.

I thought there was nothing that Administrator couldn't do?

edit 1: Speaking of which, anyone know of any hack that disables Windows' ability to grey-out boxes? That would be like the ultimate useful mod.

Click to expand...

Try rebooting and logging on as Administrator only after the reboot. The user profiles might still be considered open by Windows for whatever reason.

Wow. That fixed like.. everything. The name is how it should be, all my firefox history/cache (and auto-login info) is still here, recent opened documents... i know i'm mentioning a lot of very trivial things, but that's kinda the point. It didn't miss anything.

I'm going to keep my old login on for a week or so, just in case, but I'll use this one now.

Even Steam doesn't seem to mind

rcolbert, you are a god.