Moving User Accounts

When there is a reorganization or a user otherwise changes departments, you might need to move the user account to a new container in Active Directory Users And Computers. To move a user account, right-click the account, and then select Move. The Move dialog box appears, allowing you to select the container to which you want to move the user account. Alternatively, you can drag the user account into a new container. You can also select multiple users to move by using Windows keyboard shortcuts such as Ctrl then selecting multiple users, or using Shift and selecting the first and last user.

Renaming User Accounts

Active Directory tracks objects by their SIDs. This allows you to safely rename user, computer, and group accounts without worrying about having to change access permissions as well. That said, however, the process of renaming a user account is not as easy as renaming other types of accounts. The reason is that users have several name components that are all related to a user's last name, including a full name, display name, and user logon name. So when a person's last name changes as the result of a marriage, adoption, or divorce, you not only need to update the user's account name in Active Directory but the rest of the related name components as well. To simplify the process of renaming user accounts, Active Directory Users And Computers provides a dialog box that you can use to rename a user's account and all the related name components.

The process for renaming user accounts is as follows:

1. Find the user account that you want to rename in Active Directory Users And Computers.
2. Right-click the user account and then select Rename. Active Directory Users And Computers then highlights the account name for editing. Press the Backspace or Delete key to erase the existing name and then press Enter to open the Rename User dialog box.
3. Make the necessary changes to the user's name information and then click OK. If the user is logged on, you'll see a warning prompt telling you that the user should log off and then log back on using the new account logon name.
4. The account is renamed and the SID for access permissions remains the same. You may still need to modify other data for the user in the account's Properties dialog box, including the following:
   • User Profile Path: As necessary change the Profile Path on the Profile tab, and then rename the corresponding directory on disk.
   • Logon Script Name If you use individual logon scripts for each user, change the Logon Script Name on the Profile tab, and then rename the logon script on disk.
   • Home Folder: As necessary change the home folder path on the Profile tab, and then rename the corresponding directory on disk.