How best to rename an account on a Windows 10 Home laptop

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Hey Woody,

I am enjoying your book “Windows 10 All-in-One For Dummies,” 3rd edition. (Very informative.)

I have a question regarding as to how best to rename an account on a Windows 10 Home laptop. The OS version is: Version 1809 (OS Build 17763.854)  2018
A year ago in September I purchased the laptop which I used for a few months and then gave to a friend. I had installed a number of software packages including  the JAWS screen reader (I am a blind user) plus McAfee, MS Office, development tools including MS Visual Studio, cygwin, etc.
As my friend is not blind and not a software developer I removed JAWS and cygwin and a number of other packages and files prior to giving her the laptop. Probably the right thing to have done would have been to do an OS re-install but I wanted my friend to be able to use the Office 2016 and the virus protection so I left those on the system and we made no attempt to create a new user account. (At that time I had not read what you wrote about Windows Defender obviating the need for a third party virus protection.)
The account is an offline account. We would ideally change the account name but I am not sure how to
go about that. If we create a new account on that system will the new account be able to use the Office suite?  Will it be easy enough for her to copy the Documents, downloads, and other folders from the old account? Will it be safe to remove the old account?

How would you approach this scenario?

Thanks much,
Gary R. Day

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Why not create simply a new account and confirm that Office is available?  If you intend removing the old account, make sure the new one is an administrator (or create another admin account just for fixing things up).  If Office works, copying files should be straightforward, provided you know where to go looking in C:\users\ (which I would guess you do).

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[cmptrgy]

“I wanted my friend to be able to use the Office 2016”
Is the Office 2016 from a third-party provider or from Microsoft via a Microsoft account?
— If it was acquired from Microsoft via a Microsoft account, it should be able to be re-installed via Microsoft’s account procedure to do so even if you do a clean-install.
— I’ve done that more than once answers to those questions is very important.

“The account is an offline account”
— Are you saying the Office 2016 is in use w/o any problems and that there isn’t or hasn’t been a Microsoft account even in the past involved at all?
— If the account is an offline account, how was Office 2016 installed”
— If the Office 2016 was acquired from a third-party account, contact the vendor on what you can do.

HP EliteBook 8540w laptop Windows 10 Pro (x64)

• This reply was modified 5 years, 3 months ago by cmptrgy.

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