When Windows gets your name wrong




I recently purchased a new computer system, and when the vendor installed Windows 95 they spelt my name incorrectly. The incorrect name now appears when new software is installed and on e-mails.
I presume that this name is recorded somewhere on my hard drive and is extracted automatically when needed. How I can get my correct name to appear without having to start from scratch again?
- Peter Bungay


Windows 95 learns its "owner's" name when it is installed. If you set up your computer yourself, there is unlikely to be a problem. However, if your software was installed by MegaTech Enterprises or the like, Windows won't have a clue what your name is!
To find out what Windows thinks you are called, right-click the My Computer icon and choose Properties. Under Registered to on the General tab you will see your supposed name and the name of your company. If this information is incorrect, it's easy to put things right.
Run the Registry Editor (regedit.exe) and click down the branch: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion. In the right-hand pane, double-click RegisteredUser and enter your name. If you need to alter the company name too, double-click RegisteredOrganization and type the appropriate value. Then exit the registry.
Applications that need to know these details interrogate Windows at the time they are installed. So once you have made the registry changes specified above, new programs will be given the correct information. Unfortunately, applications already installed on your hard disk will not be updated, so for most of these programs, the best (and possibly only) option is to scour the registry for incorrect names and modify them as necessary.
- Neville Clarkson

Your registered name or company name can be reset in the registry


Category: Win95
Issue: Nov 1997
Pages: 168

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