Rename profile folder on Windows 7/8

During Windows installation I accidentally typed an accented name for my user name and my profile name is named after it. I already renamed my user to not have an accented character, but the profile folder is an other topic.

Basically I want this because I have some applications what have a problem with the accented character.

Is there a way to rename it? I know I have to make a copy from my profile, but how can I perform a relocation itself? I wouldn't like touch any other profiles on the machine just mine.

1. Login with a different admin user account.
2. Rename the profile folder that you want to keep, note the new path.
3. Open regedit. Navigate to
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
4. Find your SID in the keys listed there. You can easily tell as one of the entries will have the old path of your user account.
5. Change the ProfileImagePath entry to the new path from #2.
6. Reboot

This works on Vista/7/8, and Server 2008/R2/2012. This works for 2000/XP and 2003 as well, but you can't cross version groups; a profile from 2000 will not work on 8 for example. You'd have to use USMT.

The process of renaming profile folder was described in Microsoft KB2454362 [Renaming a User Account Does Not Automatically Change the Profile Path][1]:

1. Log in by using another administrative account.

Note You may need create a new administrative account at first.

2. Go to the C:\users\ folder and rename the sub folder with the original user name to the new user name.
3. Go to registry and modify the registry value ProfileImagePath to the new path name.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\<User SID>\

WARNING If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

4. Log out and log in again by using the user whose name is changed, and the user should use the pervious profile with new path name.

From me can add that to identify user SID you can run from the command prompt under your own session whoami /user. If you already in another admin session you can get your own "quick" session by run command prompt with runas /user:[domain\]username cmd. And as stated in MS article you have not to reboot - only logoff and login again.

Hope this helps. [1]: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2454362