[avail]

Renaming an user account on Windows systems isn't that complicated.

[JustSomeNobody]

In theory. In practice, probably not. Windows has a habit of leaving little droplets of history all over that come back to bite.

Best to just wipe and reinstall.

[avail]

Windows itself? Not really. Third party applications that hard code the path? More likely.

[motti]

Windows itself leaves the c:\users\<username> path as it was first set, even if you rename the username.

[Kurimo]

I can confirm this. Recently renamed a user as I handed off an old PC to my wife. The old directory is still there but now all the files within it are inaccessible. Caused a lot of issues!

[ygra]

This shouldn't happen. The directory is still there, but it also should still be your profile directory. Changing a user name shouldn't change the SID and make your files inaccessible.

[JustSomeNobody]

Lots of things with Windows should not happen, but they do. It shouldn't forget that I have bluetooth hardware installed, but it does. Windows just (in)conveniently forgets things. Or, conversely, remembers things that should be forgotten.

[nommm-nommm]

A lot of weird things happen when you violate Windows' core assumptions about the file system.

[JoBrad]

I just renamed my user, too, but I kept the same directory. No issues for the past month or so.

[kazinator]

It's a rare operation that most people don't ever do, and so receives little testing. Certainly little testing in a real, deployed, messy system, and not just a pristine, vanilla QA image in some Microsoft Windows test bed.