Rename local user account (Windows Xp, Windows 7, Windows 8)

I have been asked this question many times on this blog – ‘How to rename a local user account from command line?’ Well, net user command supports most of the user account related operations that we can do from Control Panel-> User accounts in GUI. It supports password reset, locking or unlocking user accounts, adding users to groups etc. One thing the GUI supports and net user  command does not support is renaming user accounts. Still, there is a way to do that from windows command line.  We need to use WMIC Useraccount command for doing this.

Below is the command for renaming a local user account on a computer.

wmic useraccount where name='currentname' rename newname

Example: To rename the user account ‘xpuser’ as ‘win7user’ we can run the below command.

wmic useraccount where name='xpuser' rename win7user

Using this command we can rename administrator account also. The below command changes the user name from ‘administrator’ to ‘admin.’

wmic useraccount where name='administrator' rename admin

http://www.windows-commandline.com/rename-local-user-account/