Problem: bought a new computer with XP Home Edition on it.
used my External Hard Drive and Goodsync Program
did not realize the Ex. Hard Drive had files from my old PC with XP Pro on it
now have 11 Admin and Limited accounts - all with differing files on them
Goal: To just have accounts from Home Edition installation
Administrative Account
Limited Account
Guest
What I have done so far:
made a tree of the accounts and names of files therein
have been cautioned NOT to move folders only files therein
have moved some files
so far no one can say/tell me what accounts I can safely delete
Can provide more information if needed re listing the numerous accounts
hesitate to delete accounts that may be necessary for XP Home Edition.
Appreciate any help/info anyone can provide.
Hi pdcagirl, welcome to WhatTheTech.
The simplest way to fix this is to reload XP, using a CD that came with the computer (OEM Recovery CD or OEM Operating System Reinstallation CD) or via a hidden partition on the hard drive, depends on which you have available.
Once you have that done then carefully copy over only the stuff you want.
Otherwise, do all these account actually show up in Control Panel / User Accounts? If not then none of them are required in any way by XP, so open Windows Explorer and delete them, one by one. Kepp just the accounts that show up in User Accounts.
What shows on User Accounts is just Black Dahlia - Donna - Guest
Problem is the Black Dahlia and Donna accounts appear twice on the 'tree' in start and explore. One will have many files in it and the other of same name may have only one or two files
Also there are several strings with a long list of numbers and letters; they appear to be accounts as they have files in them similar to files in the Black Dahlia and Donna accounts.
I am technically oriented enough to reload XP and to pay a tech to do it where I live opens up two problems - they charge a great deal here and most of them are not really the experts they proclaim. Are the directions to reloading XP very complicated?
Your "otherwise" sounds more suited to what I can do if I could determine which of the duplicated accounts to delete.
Another thought - might I do a restore to way back before I used the goodsync program on my external hard drive? Would that resolve the problem?
Do appreciate your response - has given me support , courage and food for thought?
You can delete all but Black Dahlia, Donna, Guest (and Administrator if it shows).
To see which Black Dahlia and Donna to delete, login to each one then open a Command Prompt. Enter echo %appdata% and press Enter. The response will be like this:
C:\Documents and Settings\xxxxxxxx\Application Data
where xxxxxxxx is the location on the hard drive that is associated with the account you have logged in as.
Before doing this, open Control Panel, Folder Options. Click on View then select Show hidden files and folders and uncheck Hide extensions for known file types. Click Apply then OK.
Once you do that you will see a difference between the folder names for each of the Black Dahlia and Donna accounts. One will match the result you get from the echo command in the Command Prompt above. Delete the other one.
I followed you right up to - Hide extensions, apply, OK
Then lost the idea of - seeing a difference between the folder names for the BDahlia and Donna accounts
I looked at the 'tree again' but everything seemed to be the same.
I did get with that %appdata% C:\document and settings\owner
Then afraid I am 'at sea' as to what to do next.
That's okay, some times this is hard to explain and it's possible I'm barking up the wrong tree too.
Open Windows Explorer (Start / Accessories / Windows Explorer) then click on Folders button at the top.
Expand C: then Documents and Settings. The result should look something like this (from my XP Mode virtual machine under Windows 7) though it will have all the account names from old and new systems.
What is listed on the right hand side, in the Name column? That's the tree of names we need.What I expect to see is any duplicates having a .One or .Two or something similar as part of the name. If you want, post a screen shot, like I've done.
