Replacing a User in Vista

[KC2OSO]

Not a big fan of Vista but ok, I'm trying to hang in there with it. I'm comtemplating a clean drive and a switch back to XPSP3. Hopefully one of you guru's can help me though before I do that.

I bought a used Dell lap. It's a good daily driver with Office and a few other bells and whistles that made it worth the bucks. the concept of a user has changed a lot from XP to Vista.

Searched the web for an answer on this and sort of found an answer but really didn't start editing the registry having fucked up a machine pretty well doing that in the past.

What I'd like to do is change is the Profile Name from the old owners to my name for a variety of reasons but mainly so that I can VPN into my company and use Outlook. Right now, since the Profile is the old owners, I can't get Outlook to authenticate me.

I created a new user (me) and switched me to the be the Admin on the machine but the the old owners profile still is there and I can't delete it even if I turn off User Account Control (UAC). If I delete Vista or to the Dell system restore, I lose Office and the other software. I have Office 2003 but I'm getting used to 2007 and really don't want to lose it if I dont have to.

TIA.

[Death Metal Moe]

Do you have the ability to do a quick clean install?

I usually do that with a new machine just because, but it would give you a nice place to start with this laptop AND it would solve your problem since you would be starting from scratch and be the only user.

[KC2OSO]

Do you have the ability to do a quick clean install?

I usually do that with a new machine just because, but it would give you a nice place to start with this laptop AND it would solve your problem since you would be starting from scratch and be the only user.

That's probably what I'm going to have to do. There is an option to revert to the clean install but I'd lose Office 2007 and some other stuff she had installed. She just gave me the Dell disks. It would be sort of hard to imagine I'm the first person to want to do this...but who knows.

[Death Metal Moe]

That's probably what I'm going to have to do. There is an option to revert to the clean install but I'd lose Office 2007 and some other stuff she had installed. She just gave me the Dell disks. It would be sort of hard to imagine I'm the first person to want to do this...but who knows.

Oh I agree with you that admitting defeat is lame and I'd like to hear if someone can help you change the user. It's just that when you said "a bought laptop" I thought "fresh install of Windows" anyway, thereby solving your problem as well. Also, you said you kinda want XPSP3 so there's 3 birds with one stone.

There has to be a way to do it, it's just buried in a place you don't know about.

[KC2OSO]

Oh I agree with you that admitting defeat is lame and I'd like to hear if someone can help you change the user. It's just that when you said "a bought laptop" I thought "fresh install of Windows" anyway, thereby solving your problem as well. Also, you said you kinda want XPSP3 so there's 3 birds with one stone.

There has to be a way to do it, it's just buried in a place you don't know about.
Thanks Moe - much appreciated.

[biggestmexi]

Change Registered Owner of Windows


The registered owner and organization can be easily changed in Windows by changing two registry keys.

Follow these steps to get started:

1. Click on the Start Button and type in Regedit in the search box and hit Enter.
2. Navigate through HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, SOFTWARE, Microsoft, Windows NT and CurrentVersion.
3. Modify RegisteredOwner and RegisteredOrganization.
4. Reboot to see your changes.