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General discussion

Ownership of OS user

Dec 24, 2012 1:18AM PST

Ok here it goes.
I've been helping an old friend move back home with His Wife an kids. Well he ended up GIVING me a Laptop as payment/late B-day/ early X-mas gift. Ok KOOL thx!

The thing is it was setup for his wife whom didn't want cause she liked her old one better. So everything I do ends up going under her user name in/on the C:drive (i.e. C:/user/her name) instead of mine. I have created an Acct. for myself w/admin privilege but nothing seems to have changed and when i go to manage user accts. I see Admin, Me, Default, Public, and Her.

I'm trying to get all things set to me and delete her so when I am looking at the file structure I know it's going where I told it to and don't have to remember (oh yeah her name then where i want it to go) LOL.

I'm not really up for a reformat and all and I may just be having a BrainFart on how to do this but it's got me baffled

I have tried a few things like messing with the regedit which i have done in the past for a virus but ended up needing to do a restore and lost a couple things no big thou.

Any help would be great and thank you in advance.

Peace, Love and Prosper

Discussion is locked

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OK, here's what you need to do
Dec 24, 2012 1:32AM PST

First of all avoid REGEDIT or anything that fools around with the registry. That is highly likely to cause problems that are very difficult to diagnose and fix, and could even make your computer unusable under worst case conditions. What you want to do is to go to her user ID and copy all her data to yours. This is because each user ID has its own set of libraries (i.e. Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music). After you've done that, you can delete her ID via the Users applet of the Control Panel.

Good luck.

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Appdata
Dec 24, 2012 2:27AM PST

Oh I'm trying to avoid the registry it was just something i ran across and thought I'd try.

There's a file in her user folder that can't be moved or deleted. Which is appdata, and two other files that I'll add when i can manage to get logged back in as it would seem I have locked myself out LOL (GREAT).

Also, I thought i said something bout this but, she has no user acct. If I go to manage users accts. It just shows me and guest(which is off).

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other 2 files
Dec 24, 2012 2:42AM PST

ntuser.dat.log1 and .log2

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Now I'm confused
Dec 24, 2012 3:43AM PST

In your original post you said she had a C:/user/her name. That would be her account. Then you said you created your own ID, so now you would have a C:\users\your name. Under each of these you should see the My Documents and other libraries for each ID. You only want to copy My Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos and nothing else. Once you've done that, you can do what you want with her stuff, delete it, leave there, rename it, or whatever. I don't know how her ID got deleted from the Users applet without deleting the folders (there is an option to leave them when deleting a user ID), but now hopefully you know what to do.

Good luck.

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Confused yup me to
Dec 24, 2012 9:53AM PST

Your right that's what it looks like. But here inlays the problem when I right click on her I see delete but when I try to delete it, and it gets to one of the files and says I don't have permission, I click try again and same thing. As for rename it's not in the right click option, or I would have just renamed the folder and UAC and computer name. Also I don't understand why the folders in hers are an off blue color instead of the normal manilla(orangeish color) but mine are manilla. And there's one folder in hers that is manilla and it's the titled AppData. One other thing when I right click hers and choose properties at the top under general where folder name is it's grayed out so I can't change it. ie I guess that's why the rename option isn't there.

Also if i look at the security tab in properties It shows Object name C:/user/her then under group/username it has two permissions SYSTEM and Admin(me\admin). If that help shed any light.

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Because we're not supposed to delete that.
Dec 24, 2012 10:03AM PST

We're supposed to use the control panel to manage users. If you blow away an user's folder like that, then the account fails. Some might take that as an OS bug.
Bob

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Edit after thought
Dec 24, 2012 10:35AM PST

One other thing when I look at the task manager under processes the username is all Her minus a couple System ones...

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Odd. I would have removed her by now.
Dec 24, 2012 1:34AM PST

But it appears you want to do this the hard way. I don't do things the hard way.
Bob

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Hard way sure. Bring it! But easy is always nice
Dec 24, 2012 2:30AM PST

No! I just want the naming of the locations to be understandable and easily referenced.

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Then you need to know that you can't rename them.
Dec 24, 2012 3:55AM PST

Sure there are ways but it's treacherous. Even I would not do that!

I would create new accounts and move from the old to the new account then remove the old account.

Anything else would be a solo trip through the swamp.
Bob

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What I don't get
Dec 24, 2012 4:18AM PST

What I don't get, is why you didn't just do a factory software restore first thing. Then you have a nice fresh, not to mention malleable, OS install to work with. No lingering bits from any past users, or anything else like what you're dealing with now.

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I'm stubborn
Dec 24, 2012 10:15AM PST

Well it's vista and I'm not used to this OS sense I've been on XP for who knows how long. Plus her husband put a few Apps on there he knew I'd like, nothing to major, but I just know I should be able to make these changes and it's not working as I thought it would. Also I'm trying to familiarize myself with the difference between the two OS's. Which so far isn't to different. Just a little trickier in some ways.

Oh And I'm also USB tethered through my phone for net and DL's take way to long cause there's no 3G service where I sit, and I'm on my desktop at the moment sense I can't seem to find a way to bridge my connection through wi-fi and my phones tether. I mean I can talk to each computer cause they both have wireless capabilities be that's through a app called Wipeer which might just be for file sharing wirelessly though i could hook up a crossover cable but then I wouldn't be able to take the laptop outside and maintain connection cause the cable ain't long enough LOL...

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We have clients like that.
Dec 25, 2012 1:22AM PST

We count ourselves lucky to have them. They are at least 10 or more percent of our income. I think this speaks volumes.
Bob