Rename an exchange user

qwertyiop · March 2009

I run a Win 2003 network. A user has gotten married and I would like to change her logon info on AD and I wanted to know what the best way to do this was and how would this affect her Exchange info?

aordal · March 2009

I suggest keeping the username the same. Just right click the user's account in AD and choose rename. That'll change the way her name is displayed in outlook and in the GAL.

If you really have to change her username too she'll have to recreate her local profile on her computer, but she'll still have access to everything (network drives, DLs etc..)

Diminutive · March 2009

Or after changing the username and loggign in once with the new username goto HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList and change th elocation of the new profile to the old one (blow out ntuser.dat, ntuser.dat.log and ntuser.ini to avoid possible corruption) - you still have to recreate some thing like the Outlook profile but it eases the process.

This is assuming WinXP on the client.

arwes · March 2009

All I've ever had to do was rename the user in AD, and then change the email addresses under the Email Addresses tab in AD (well, and change some stuff in Appriver but that's specific to our setup). I don't recall the last user having any profile issues either, but it's been awhile since we've had any newlyweds at my office.

blargoe · March 2009

They typically like to change the user name when they get married. They REALLY want it changed when they get divorced.

Here is what we do at our shop.

Active Directory - real easy trick to get everything in one swoop is to right click the user in ADUC and Rename. Change the last name. Then you get prompted with another bunch of fields where you can change the username, login upn and stuff like that. Update all of it.

Exchange - Change the Alias, and add an email address that reflects their new married name. Normally you want to keep the old email address around so her contacts won't have mail get bounced. Set the new email address as the Primary SMTP address, so all outgoing mail get send with a reply-to matching her new email address.

Home folder - rename her home folder, then change the name of it in her profile tab in ADUC. People forget to do this a lot of the time, then when an admin sees the old username and forget who it is, stuff gets deleted.

The outlook profile stuff will still work. The last time I dealt with one on the front line, the only problem was cosmetic. The name at the top of the folder list is whatever the display name was when the profile was created. Recreating the profile fixes that and I think there's also a registry edit that fixes that I think.

I wouldn't bother with the user profile on the desktop, that isn't really worth your trouble renaming IMO.

qwertyiop · March 2009

Thanks Blargoe, is there anything else that i should worry about before doing this?

Kasor · March 2009

Usually, we modify the display name. Staff or User cannot make up their mind what they want. Just go by what HR give you when they first start. I don't support too much change on AD and when u have interlink to many servers and system. Too much work and too much of troubles..

blargoe · March 2009

qwertyiop wrote: »

Thanks Blargoe, is there anything else that i should worry about before doing this?

We run Office Communicator, if you're using that, you have to rename the alias there, and they have to sign in to Communicator one time with the new user id and their password to be able to logon automatically in the future. I can't think of anything else off hand as far as basic stuff goes. Your mileage may vary depending on what apps you have in your shop that rely on AD.

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Rename an exchange user

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