How do you remove old/previous user names on a Studio 1555 running Vista

Question

Hi,

Have just bought a second hand Studio 1555 from someone and found they are still defined in the User directory on the C drive and I cannot remove them.

They do not show up in Manage User Accounts on the control panel but their name is shown after the computer name when you open System in control panel click on change settings for computer name then Advanced > User Profiles and even though I am logged in as the administrator it won't allow me to change or delete this setting? Does anyone know how to remove previous owners who have registered as a User? Is this something I can change in BIOS for example?

Any help appreciated as everytime I transfer files over to the new laptop from my old Inspiron like Music for example despite putting them under my User name they appear under his user name.

One more thing I could not open the link 'Start a Forum Discussion' on the Dell website to start this discussion from my new Studio so had to use the Inspiron, click it and no drop down options are offered? Using same version of Firefox on both PC's and checked all settings are identical? Any ideas?

Thanks

C3PO5 · Answer

Hi

With Vista it is F8 after the Dell logo goes away and before windows starts you start tapping F8 to do a factory restore , that is if the hard drive still has the D:\Recovery partition and the F8 is still working to repair my computer in the advance menu look for the Dell PCrestore on the bottom of that page .

If you do this it will format the C:\ drive make sure you have all of your files,pictures and other data saved before you start F8.

Good Luck

beamermt25 · Answer

Hello!  When you first set up your computer, whatever name you put in as the primary user will be what the folders and stuff are labled even if you change the name.  If you go to accounts and click on the name you dont want.. you should be able to change it to something else, but it will not affect things like user folders as those are perminent.  The only thing you can do is re-install the system using the restore partition (Control + F11 I believe) or restore discs.

benbooafrica · Answer

Thanks Guys, I had a sinking feeling I would have to do something like this,but was hoping someone had a magic work around.

I haved moved quite a lot over to the new laptop already so will have weigh up whether to live with this niggly problem or go for it and start all over again. At least I suppose trying this will prove the recovery partition/discs work!

Cheers

benbooafrica · Answer

Hi All,

I have held off restoring my PC to the Vista factory settings and I now have the Win 7 upgrade discs.

Question would upgrading to Windows 7 also achieve the aim of re-setting the USER names or will the existing previous owner name still be carried over i.e. do I have to restore the PC back to Vista factory state to get rid of the previous owners user name before doing the Win 7 upgrade?

Thanks

C3PO5 · Answer

Question would upgrading to Windows 7 also achieve the aim of re-setting the USER names or will the existing previous owner name still be carried over i.e

Hi

Yes it will use the original owners name and settings when you upgrade to win 7.

Good Luck

benbooafrica · Answer

Thanks for the quick response Jerry, I suspected this might be the case but it was good to get it confirmed. Have now re-installed Vista and removed the previous owners settings so next step will upgrade to Win 7, so far so good.

Best

Peter

C3PO5 · Answer

Hi Peter I wish you the best and your Welcome:emotion-1: Good Luck

Windows General

How do you remove old/previous user names on a Studio 1555 running Vista

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