Help please: User account shows up that I didn't create

[someone]

I have two computers, I just a few weeks ago installed Windows Home
Pre 32 bit on one of them, all went well and so far, other than a
couple strange things I'm happy.

When I installed I created a user 'Gene' running as a normal user, not
admin. So at log in I see my Admin account and also my Gene account
and I most often run as Gene. The strange thing is that when looking
at the user accounts on the hard drive the account I seem to be using
is called 'Gene_2' instead of 'Gene'. There is a User called Gene
present under users but I am unable to access it when logged in as I
do under the Gene account.

The other computer also has Windows 7 but Pro version and it's 64 bit
and it has the same exact issue, I had created a user called Gene
during setup and that's what shows up at log in time but I seem to be
running under a user name of gene_2 instead.

I can find nothing anywhere regarding this issue and what's going on.
Anyone have any help for me?

Thanks,
Gene

 

[John B. Slocomb]

I have two computers, I just a few weeks ago installed Windows Home
Pre 32 bit on one of them, all went well and so far, other than a
couple strange things I'm happy.

When I installed I created a user 'Gene' running as a normal user, not
admin. So at log in I see my Admin account and also my Gene account
and I most often run as Gene. The strange thing is that when looking
at the user accounts on the hard drive the account I seem to be using
is called 'Gene_2' instead of 'Gene'. There is a User called Gene
present under users but I am unable to access it when logged in as I
do under the Gene account.

The other computer also has Windows 7 but Pro version and it's 64 bit
and it has the same exact issue, I had created a user called Gene
during setup and that's what shows up at log in time but I seem to be
running under a user name of gene_2 instead.

I can find nothing anywhere regarding this issue and what's going on.
Anyone have any help for me?

Thanks,
Gene

When I installed Windows 7 it made a user directory with the name I
had furnished at some point during the installation. If I then
manually created another directory using the same name the system
would name it xxx_2, or some such name.

John B. Slocomb
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)

 

[someone]

When I installed Windows 7 it made a user directory with the name I
had furnished at some point during the installation. If I then
manually created another directory using the same name the system
would name it xxx_2, or some such name.

John B. Slocomb
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)

John, in either case I did not create another user with the same name.
On one machine I created a second Admin account with a different name
and on the other machine I did not. It only has Admin and Gene and
those are the two that show up during log in time but if I look under
the user folder there is Gene and Gene_2 and I cannot access Gene,
only gene_2 while logged in as Gene. I suspect something is wrong as
it's the same on both machines.

 

[John B. Slocomb]

John, in either case I did not create another user with the same name.
On one machine I created a second Admin account with a different name
and on the other machine I did not. It only has Admin and Gene and
those are the two that show up during log in time but if I look under
the user folder there is Gene and Gene_2 and I cannot access Gene,
only gene_2 while logged in as Gene. I suspect something is wrong as
it's the same on both machines.

Mystifying. Are you sure that Gene is not a link to Gene_2 or
vise-versa? Rather like the two document directories under the
\user\name directory.Can you rename one without effecting the other?

My experience with 7 is limited to the four or five installations I
have made of it but none of them added a XYZ_2 directory without being
told to.

John B. Slocomb
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)

 

[someone]

Mystifying. Are you sure that Gene is not a link to Gene_2 or
vise-versa? Rather like the two document directories under the
\user\name directory.Can you rename one without effecting the other?

My experience with 7 is limited to the four or five installations I
have made of it but none of them added a XYZ_2 directory without being
told to.

John B. Slocomb
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)

Wow, this is strange. It turns out that while logged in as gene, I can
access many of the folders under the gene user under the users
directory. BTW, admin does not show up there, just default, gene,
gene_2 and public. The desktop folder is acessible and under gene it
has just a few items in it vs gene_2 which seems to have all my
desktop items. Is it possible that the gene folder is really the admin
folder and the gene_2 folder is the name the system used for user
gene. Note, both of my win7 computers look this way for some reason.
BTW, it seems not to harm anything as they both run great, it's just
so strange.

 

[Seth]

Wow, this is strange. It turns out that while logged in as gene, I can
access many of the folders under the gene user under the users
directory. BTW, admin does not show up there, just default, gene,
gene_2 and public. The desktop folder is acessible and under gene it
has just a few items in it vs gene_2 which seems to have all my
desktop items. Is it possible that the gene folder is really the admin
folder and the gene_2 folder is the name the system used for user
gene. Note, both of my win7 computers look this way for some reason.
BTW, it seems not to harm anything as they both run great, it's just
so strange.

While logged in as either account (as in, do this for both accounts), open a
CMD box and type "set user" followed by [Enter].

What do you see while logged in as each account? The %USERNAME% variable is
who you are currently logged in as and %USERPROFILE% is the users path.

My guess without seeing the above output is ADMIN=GENE and GENE=GENE_2.
When the GENE account was created there was already a users folder for GENE
and hence the number that was added.

 

[a]

Wow, this is strange. It turns out that while logged in as gene, I can
access many of the folders under the gene user under the users
directory. BTW, admin does not show up there, just default, gene,
gene_2 and public. The desktop folder is acessible and under gene it
has just a few items in it vs gene_2 which seems to have all my
desktop items. Is it possible that the gene folder is really the admin
folder and the gene_2 folder is the name the system used for user
gene. Note, both of my win7 computers look this way for some reason.
BTW, it seems not to harm anything as they both run great, it's just
so strange.

Yes, that is why you have 2 folders, one if for gene the administrator
and the other is for gene the user. There is no folder actually
labelled administrator because the master administrator account is
disabled by default in all recent versions of windows (xp and vista)
and you won't have a folder labelled administrator unless you
specifically turn that account on.

 

[PeeCee]

I have two computers, I just a few weeks ago installed Windows Home
Pre 32 bit on one of them, all went well and so far, other than a
couple strange things I'm happy.

When I installed I created a user 'Gene' running as a normal user, not
admin. So at log in I see my Admin account and also my Gene account
and I most often run as Gene. The strange thing is that when looking
at the user accounts on the hard drive the account I seem to be using
is called 'Gene_2' instead of 'Gene'. There is a User called Gene
present under users but I am unable to access it when logged in as I
do under the Gene account.

The other computer also has Windows 7 but Pro version and it's 64 bit
and it has the same exact issue, I had created a user called Gene
during setup and that's what shows up at log in time but I seem to be
running under a user name of gene_2 instead.

I can find nothing anywhere regarding this issue and what's going on.
Anyone have any help for me?

Thanks,
Gene

Gene

The reply Seth gave you is pretty well right on the mark.

I have seen similar with XP installs in the past where a User folder with
the name you want to use already exists.
Windows installer automatically adds a suffix to differentiate your new
account of the same name from the existing one.
eg in XP if 'Gene' already existed as a folder under Documents and Settings,
Windows would create a folder 'Gene.win' but present the user name 'Gene' at
logon.
Note this is during a Windows install, adding a user through the control
panel once Windows is installed will normally give a 'name exists' error.

This suffix addition could also be extended to include the Administrator
(Administrator.win) and other default folders under Documents and Settings
when you reinstalled Windows over the top of an existing install.
On a PC that had many reinstalls of Windows without wiping the hard drive
first you could see many Administrator folders in Documents and Settings
each with a different suffix.
(also Windows, Windows.000, Windows.001 etc)
You didn't by any chance restart the install part way through, or didn't
wipe the previous version of Windows?

This difference between the displayed name and folder name can also be
demonstrated by going into Control Panel, User Accounts and changing the
name of your 'Gene' account.
Try something like 'Fred' then try Seth's 'set user' CMD trick and you will
see the user name is now Fred but the user folder is still 'Gene_2'
Changing the logon name only changes the displayed name, not the underlying
user folder.
You can only create a new folder (eg Bill) by adding a new user account.

The original 'Gene' folder BTW is in limbo and you can delete it after
removing any data to a safe place.
Then rename your logon name from Gene to (say) Fred for the user folder
Gene-2 reboot and logon with Fred.
You should now be able to add a new User account of 'Gene' which will have a
user folder name of 'Gene'
To change over to the new 'Gene' just move your data and recreate your email
accounts etc, reboot into the new 'Gene' and you can delete the old Fred
(Gene_2) account choosing the delete files option to clean out the user
folder as well.


Best
Paul.

 

[someone]

Gene

The reply Seth gave you is pretty well right on the mark.

I have seen similar with XP installs in the past where a User folder with
the name you want to use already exists.
Windows installer automatically adds a suffix to differentiate your new
account of the same name from the existing one.
eg in XP if 'Gene' already existed as a folder under Documents and Settings,
Windows would create a folder 'Gene.win' but present the user name 'Gene' at
logon.
Note this is during a Windows install, adding a user through the control
panel once Windows is installed will normally give a 'name exists' error.

This suffix addition could also be extended to include the Administrator
(Administrator.win) and other default folders under Documents and Settings
when you reinstalled Windows over the top of an existing install.
On a PC that had many reinstalls of Windows without wiping the hard drive
first you could see many Administrator folders in Documents and Settings
each with a different suffix.
(also Windows, Windows.000, Windows.001 etc)
You didn't by any chance restart the install part way through, or didn't
wipe the previous version of Windows?

This difference between the displayed name and folder name can also be
demonstrated by going into Control Panel, User Accounts and changing the
name of your 'Gene' account.
Try something like 'Fred' then try Seth's 'set user' CMD trick and you will
see the user name is now Fred but the user folder is still 'Gene_2'
Changing the logon name only changes the displayed name, not the underlying
user folder.
You can only create a new folder (eg Bill) by adding a new user account.

The original 'Gene' folder BTW is in limbo and you can delete it after
removing any data to a safe place.
Then rename your logon name from Gene to (say) Fred for the user folder
Gene-2 reboot and logon with Fred.
You should now be able to add a new User account of 'Gene' which will have a
user folder name of 'Gene'
To change over to the new 'Gene' just move your data and recreate your email
accounts etc, reboot into the new 'Gene' and you can delete the old Fred
(Gene_2) account choosing the delete files option to clean out the user
folder as well.


Best
Paul.

Seems that you guys are correct, that Admin account is named gene. The
account that I created as regular user is called gene_2. I tested last
night, logged in as admin and I can access the stuff in and under the
gene account without problems. That account folder, gene, also has a
little lock symbol by it I notice. It must have been during install
when it created the default admin account, that gene name must have
been input by me or picked up from somewhere else.

I guess I'll just leave it alone as it's only an issue when looking
under the users folder at that structure.

I surely thank you all for your input - I appreciate the help and I
still think windows 7 is the best so far.

Gene and gene_2