Windows 10 created new default user

Question

After yesterdays Windows 10 Update, my windows OS created a new user called "Alex.DESKTOP-XYZ". As seen in "C:\Users". My old user account was "Alex".

Now I have two user folders and the default login user is "Alex.DESKTOP-XYZ". Although I can access all my files on the old "Alex" account by going into "C:\Users\Alex", I'd like to go back to it being my default login account.

Why did Windows 10 create a new user account folder? And how can I switch back?

Solution

This usually occurs when there is a problem with the old profile. Windows creates a copy of the profile with the username and the computer name appended to it. Windows sits not create a new user entirely.

You can confirm this by checking the user accounts on the computer.

If you can determine why it created the new folder you can resolve that issue and the next time you log in you should be back to the original profile.

If your profile isn't terribly complicated though, I'd recommend you backup all of your data from it and delete the old faulty profile entirely. On next login windows should recreate the folder and you'll be able to put everything back where it belongs.

Comments

[Ravindra Bawane]

This usually occurs when there is a problem with the old profile. Windows creates a copy of the profile with the username and the computer name appended to it. Windows sits not create a new user.

[LPChip]

I would think it is a problem with the conversion from old profile to new profile, given that a windows 10 upgrade is like a fresh install, then migrate everything over.

[Ramhound]

@LPChip The author was already running Windows 10

[LPChip]

@Ramhound Yes, but I am talking about upgrading from version 1703 to version 1709 which basically reïnstalls windows.

[Ravindra Bawane]

It's a major update, but I wouldn't call it "basically reinstalling", but that may just be semantics. The profile would have the ntuser.dat file updated and the AppData directories. Errors in either of these would create the circumstance described by OP.