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I have an Active Directory domain, running on Windows Server 2008 DCs. I have this user who got married and changed her last name. I have already changed her last name in Exchange 2007, created a new alias for her email and assigned it as Primary SMTP address, so i think Exchange is taken care of.

Now, i haven't changed her user name yet (the convention is flastname) because i have redirected folders with offline files at this site. The user is using a Windows 7 based laptop and she uses it both onsite and remotely, where she VPNs in with a Cisco VPN Client.

What are the implications and precautions for changing her username in this environment?

If i went ahead and changed her username, would redirected folders log her onto a blank profile? or would it redirect her to her profile folder using her SID?

Zero Subnet
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These questions depend on a more detailed explication of how the redirected folders are done. Are they via GPO? If so how does the GPO map them? Via %username%? Is it just documents/music/favorites/downloads, or the whole profile root?

If that were all true except for the profile root (which makes it more complicated), then yes it should be fine if you change the network folder name at same time as username. It won't change anything until their next login, and you may actually need to tell them to log in, log out, then log in a 2nd time for offline files to fully engage. This process will be detailed in the Event Logs of the client PC.

Note that their local path on the client PC will not change for existing login's but that shouldn't affect redirected folders or offline files.

If I were you I'd test this with a test user rename, and then document the correct steps in order for future occurrences of this.

Bret Fisher
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When we change a username at my firm, we simply do the rename in AD and rename any redirected folders and homefolders (if any) while the user is logged off. They log back in using their new name and all seems like it was. Never been an issue - just one noticeable difference, we do not use offline files.

Otherwise yes, I believe the user would get redirected to newly created (and empty) folders.

Jordan W.
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