Windows User Name & "My Documents"

[Stumpy2]

I may be having a bad day (in fact, I KNOW I'm having a bad day!), but:

Normally, when you set up Windows with your user name, etc, you get a My Documents and various other folders including desktop icons, etc, set up automatically in C:\Documents and Settings\user name

Now, when my computer was back to get the graphics card changed, for some weird reason they decided to completely reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows and, instead of using my name as the user name, set it to "MY COMPUTER"

This is niggling. I can change the way the name is shown on the log in screen and start menu by "changing user name" in the control panel user accounts section, but that does not change the name of the main folder that everything is stored in. I can't just right click on the folder and rename as it is a windows system file, or something. The only other thing I could think of was to simply create another user account under my own name and then go through the laborious process of reinstalling those pieces of software that have bits stored under the "MY COMPUTER" user name account. Which I don't really want to do, as I've already had to reinstall software 3 or 4 times on this computer and some of my discs are starting to complain.

Any suggestions?

Oh, and when I look at the user account settings, there is one there called "ASP.NET Machine A..." which is a limited account but doesn't show on the log in screen - what is that? Not something I've put on.

[Moby-Dick]

leave the .net framework account well alone.

you should not have to reinstall any software if you create a new user
and you dont have to delete the existing one.

if you make sure the new user has access , its not too tricky to copy the contents of "My Documents" accross

[Stumpy2]

Okkkay - well that doesn't really explain what the .net framework account is? Is it something that Mesh has put on, or is it some standard Windows thing? I'm just a bit cautious about having a user account on my system that I didn't set up and don't know anything about.

Also, with respect to the My documents stuff - yes, there is no problem copying everything over in those directories (I'm assuming, although if you look at the C:\Documents and Settings\MY COMPUTER (or whichever user name) there are a lot of hidden files in there - things that keep programme settings in for, for example, Firefox and Thunderbird Mozilla software). But even if it does copy things over okay, I then have the problem of various shortcuts and settings no longer working as the programmes are pointing to the wrong directory (ie, C:\Documents and Settings\MY COMPUTER\.... as opposed to C:\Documents and Settings\My New User Name\....). I can go through and change some of them, but I'm sure there will be others which will have embedded themselves into the registry? I don't want to much around with that.

[Moby-Dick]

No offence , but if you dont fully understand it , leave it alone !
its a service account used by the .net framework. You will not need ot do anythign with it. dont delete it or mess abotu with it. you are much more likely to break something and improve any performance.


Again if you are installing applications into your My Docuemtns , then you really need to stop and think.

programs live in c:\program files, not in my documents.

Creating a new user is not going to overwrite anything , so you are of to do that. then you will need to do some thinking and look up how to migrate a thunderbird mail store (its not difficult )

as ,long as you only copy and dont move things , if it doesn't work , then you can revert back to the original profile with nothing broken.

again , leave the registry alone , I'll be just fine on its own.

[Stumpy2]

No offence , but if you dont fully understand it , leave it alone !
its a service account used by the .net framework. You will not need ot do anythign with it. dont delete it or mess abotu with it. you are much more likely to break something and improve any performance.

Isn't this the point of these forums - to understand it more fully? If someone just stuck a computer in front of you, said it was yours to do with what you will, wouldn't you want to know what had gone on before? Wouldn't you check it for viruses, security problems or just downright stupid programmes? Or would you just keep adding to it without asking questions about what was already on it? As you can see - some offence taken. I've had some rubbish off Mesh before, and you really don't want to get me started on all that again - it was just an honest question asking what a particular user account was doing on my computer when I hadn't set it up. If you had simply explained what it was and to leave it alone, that would have done. Saying "leave it alone" and "if you don't understand it, leave it alone" doesn't really help. You could say that for anything.

Again if you are installing applications into your My Docuemtns , then you really need to stop and think.

programs live in c:\program files, not in my documents.

Okay - no offence, but I'm not just talking about "My Documents" here am I? I'm talking about everything that lives in the C:\Documents and Settings\ folder and sub folders thereof. I'm fully aware that programmes should be installed in the c:\program files\ directory (although saying that, I have never seen anything anywhere that specifically states that is how it MUST be).

For your information, there are a few programmes that, once installed in the correct place ie, the c:\program files directory, also put little folders and files in various places, including the Documents and Settings folder - including but not restricted to Firefox and Thunderbird.

I'm fully aware of how to copy/move my Thunderbird and Firefox settings - having had to do it several times already since buying this Mesh computer a month or so ago (and before you say anything, each time under instructions from Mesh Technical Support). But there are others in that folder that aren't so receptive to just upping and moving, which is why I mentioned the registry.

again , leave the registry alone , I'll be just fine on its own.

- which as I had already mentioned, I had no intention of mucking around with.

Obviously, I was wasting my time here. All I wanted to know was an answer to a simple question - was there an easy way of changing the path name from the one set by Mesh to one of my choosing, without having to muck about moving, copying and reinstalling stuff. I'm assuming your answer is "no".

[Moby-Dick]

Essentialy not - your questions would have been better off in the software forum.

Would you buy a car without learning to drive or would you expect the dealer to teach you ?

nb I have nothing to do with MESH , you'd have got the same answers if you'd asked them in other parts of the forum.

User settings for applications are movable.

why dont you actually provide some example of applicaiton setting you want to move and perhaps you might get more help.

In fact I'm going to move your thread to the correct subforum , because as I see it , its not really MESH's problem.

[Stumpy2]

Firstly - I didn't realise you were not part of Mesh - I (obviously incorrectly) assumed that if I posted on their forum, anyone who replied would be connected to Mesh.

Secondly - I posted it on the Mesh forum because I have just bought a computer off them, had over a month of hardware faults with it, it finally came back from their workshops recently and then I discovered this settings problem - which is how their own engineers set it up, not how I did or would have done.

Thirdly - I have been corresponding through the forums with Davey, one of their engineers, who has helped me solve a few problems and indeed got the computer fixed after weeks of inactivity and poor/incorrect information from their help lines/technical support. I was hoping that I would be able to get a similar response with regard to this query.

[Stumpy2]

Thank to Davey, who tracked this message down, the questions I raised have now been answered satisfactorily.

[Moby-Dick]

sorry to hear about the hardware issues you have been having but The windows problems you are having and are more likely to be resolved outside the mesh forum. ( because not everyone views all the fourms at once like I do ) Its an odd name to give the first account and a little more strange that the machine wasn't just reimaged and left at the minisetup stage , but nothing that can't be fixed with a little time & planning.
why dont you list your commonly used application here and we'll go through a plan to migrate them to a new user profile of your choice.

[Stumpy2]

It's okay - I can do that all myself. What I really wanted was someone to say - "hey, you don't need to do that, you can just use this little-known windows facility and it will automatically do it for you"... lol. Wishful thinking - but I would have kicked myself if I found out AFTER I'd shifted everything that that had been possible!

I have no idea why the Mesh engineers did what they did - I'm just glad the thing works now. As far as I could see, there was no reason at all to alter anything on my hard drive as all they were doing was replacing a dodgy graphics card like for like with another one - same make, type, etc. I'm assuming they just wanted to make sure I hadn't mucked drivers up to compound the problem - but after having to reinstall everything, including Windows, several times over the course of a month, I'd sort of worked through any possible driver problems!