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#1
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of old PC?
Once upon a time I owned a Dell 550 MHz PC running Windows XP Pro SP2.
Recently, I sold this PC to a friend of mine. In the process of removing my name, Peter A. Sale (aka, Peter Sale) from every place that it appears in this PC, and replacing it with my friend's name, Dave, I have run into two final occurrences of my name (I hope these are the last occurrences). Since this was my PC, I set up my Windows XP user account (administrator) with my name, Peter A. Sale. Later, I attempted to change my user account name from Peter A. Sale to just Peter. Now I have two directories- Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter- that I want to "safely" remove from Dave's PC. I just checked, and there are four User Accounts currently defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). So my questions are as follows: 1. How can I completely and "safely" remove directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter replacing them with, say Dave? 2. Given the four User Accounts on this PC, why do the directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter even exist? -- Best regards, Peter Sale |
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#2
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of old PC?
You don't have to delete a profile of a user account.. the best practice is
just rename the account, that way you maintain the whole profile... you can do that by right clicking the MY COMPUTER icon and choose Manage, then expand "System tools" if not already, expand "Local Users and Groups" and click on "Users", right click the user account that you intend to change and click "Rename". If you delete a Profile the system will recreate it so in order to accomplish that, you first have to remove the account from within the "Users" in the previous console and then delete the user's profile... You don't provide much info on how you create/rename these accounts in order to figure out if something was wrong with the procedure... "Peter S." wrote: Once upon a time I owned a Dell 550 MHz PC running Windows XP Pro SP2. Recently, I sold this PC to a friend of mine. In the process of removing my name, Peter A. Sale (aka, Peter Sale) from every place that it appears in this PC, and replacing it with my friend's name, Dave, I have run into two final occurrences of my name (I hope these are the last occurrences). Since this was my PC, I set up my Windows XP user account (administrator) with my name, Peter A. Sale. Later, I attempted to change my user account name from Peter A. Sale to just Peter. Now I have two directories- Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter- that I want to "safely" remove from Dave's PC. I just checked, and there are four User Accounts currently defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). So my questions are as follows: 1. How can I completely and "safely" remove directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter replacing them with, say Dave? 2. Given the four User Accounts on this PC, why do the directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter even exist? -- Best regards, Peter Sale |
#3
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of old PC?
I created the "Peter A. Sale" user account around a year ago during my
upgrade on that PC from Windows 98 SE to Windows XP Pro. That is, during the Windows XP Pro installation process, I was asked to create a User Account, and I chose to name that account Peter A. Sale. A short time later, I installed a program (PanoCube) that does not function properly if it or any of its data reside in a directory path that contains blank spaces, for example, "Peter A. Sale," so I attempted to shorten my User Account name to just "Peter." This did not resolve the problem with that application because I had initially installed that program into c:\Program Files\PanoCube and the data in c:\Documents and Settings\Peter A. Sale. Both of these directory paths contained spaces. I wound up installing the program and its data in c:\panocube, but I was left with c:\Documents and Settings\Peter A. Sale and later with c:\Documents and Settings\Peter. Now I want to change the user accounts on this compute to reflect its new owner, Dave, not its old owner, Peter or Peter A. Sale. -- Regards, Peter Sale Santa Monica, CA USA To email me, just pull 'my-leg.' "kchat" replied ... You don't have to delete a profile of a user account.. the best practice is just rename the account, that way you maintain the whole profile... you can do that by right clicking the MY COMPUTER icon and choose Manage, then expand "System tools" if not already, expand "Local Users and Groups" and click on "Users", right click the user account that you intend to change and click "Rename". If you delete a Profile the system will recreate it so in order to accomplish that, you first have to remove the account from within the "Users" in the previous console and then delete the user's profile... You don't provide much info on how you create/rename these accounts in order to figure out if something was wrong with the procedure... "Peter S." wrote: Once upon a time I owned a Dell 550 MHz PC running Windows XP Pro SP2. Recently, I sold this PC to a friend of mine. In the process of removing my name, Peter A. Sale (aka, Peter Sale) from every place that it appears in this PC, and replacing it with my friend's name, Dave, I have run into two final occurrences of my name (I hope these are the last occurrences). Since this was my PC, I set up my Windows XP user account (administrator) with my name, Peter A. Sale. Later, I attempted to change my user account name from Peter A. Sale to just Peter. Now I have two directories- Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter- that I want to "safely" remove from Dave's PC. I just checked, and there are four User Accounts currently defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). So my questions are as follows: 1. How can I completely and "safely" remove directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter replacing them with, say Dave? 2. Given the four User Accounts on this PC, why do the directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter even exist? -- Best regards, Peter Sale |
#4
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of old
Just delete the accounts you don't need anymore...run "control
userpasswords2" in the run dialog box...delete as needed ...and then navigate to the "Documents and settings" folder to remove the users profiles ....renaming a user and assigning a new name would do too...else create a new user with the appropriate name... "Peter Sale" wrote: I created the "Peter A. Sale" user account around a year ago during my upgrade on that PC from Windows 98 SE to Windows XP Pro. That is, during the Windows XP Pro installation process, I was asked to create a User Account, and I chose to name that account Peter A. Sale. A short time later, I installed a program (PanoCube) that does not function properly if it or any of its data reside in a directory path that contains blank spaces, for example, "Peter A. Sale," so I attempted to shorten my User Account name to just "Peter." This did not resolve the problem with that application because I had initially installed that program into c:\Program Files\PanoCube and the data in c:\Documents and Settings\Peter A. Sale. Both of these directory paths contained spaces. I wound up installing the program and its data in c:\panocube, but I was left with c:\Documents and Settings\Peter A. Sale and later with c:\Documents and Settings\Peter. Now I want to change the user accounts on this compute to reflect its new owner, Dave, not its old owner, Peter or Peter A. Sale. -- Regards, Peter Sale Santa Monica, CA USA To email me, just pull 'my-leg.' "kchat" replied ... You don't have to delete a profile of a user account.. the best practice is just rename the account, that way you maintain the whole profile... you can do that by right clicking the MY COMPUTER icon and choose Manage, then expand "System tools" if not already, expand "Local Users and Groups" and click on "Users", right click the user account that you intend to change and click "Rename". If you delete a Profile the system will recreate it so in order to accomplish that, you first have to remove the account from within the "Users" in the previous console and then delete the user's profile... You don't provide much info on how you create/rename these accounts in order to figure out if something was wrong with the procedure... "Peter S." wrote: Once upon a time I owned a Dell 550 MHz PC running Windows XP Pro SP2. Recently, I sold this PC to a friend of mine. In the process of removing my name, Peter A. Sale (aka, Peter Sale) from every place that it appears in this PC, and replacing it with my friend's name, Dave, I have run into two final occurrences of my name (I hope these are the last occurrences). Since this was my PC, I set up my Windows XP user account (administrator) with my name, Peter A. Sale. Later, I attempted to change my user account name from Peter A. Sale to just Peter. Now I have two directories- Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter- that I want to "safely" remove from Dave's PC. I just checked, and there are four User Accounts currently defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). So my questions are as follows: 1. How can I completely and "safely" remove directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter replacing them with, say Dave? 2. Given the four User Accounts on this PC, why do the directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter even exist? -- Best regards, Peter Sale |
#5
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of old PC?
On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 12:36:42 -0800, Peter S. wrote:
Once upon a time I owned a Dell 550 MHz PC running Windows XP Pro SP2. Recently, I sold this PC to a friend of mine. In the process of removing my name, Peter A. Sale (aka, Peter Sale) from every place that it appears in this PC, and replacing it with my friend's name, Dave, I have run into two final occurrences of my name (I hope these are the last occurrences). Since this was my PC, I set up my Windows XP user account (administrator) with my name, Peter A. Sale. Later, I attempted to change my user account name from Peter A. Sale to just Peter. Now I have two directories- Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter- that I want to "safely" remove from Dave's PC. I just checked, and there are four User Accounts currently defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). So my questions are as follows: 1. How can I completely and "safely" remove directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter replacing them with, say Dave? 2. Given the four User Accounts on this PC, why do the directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter even exist? When you logon to a newly created a user account, folders with corresponding names are created. If you later rename that account, the "friendly" name changes but the folder names remain the same. Create a new account for Dave. Delete your old accounts. -- Sharon F MS-MVP ~ Windows Shell/User |
#6
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of old
I ran "control userpasswords2" in the run dialog box, clicked on a user
account I created a year ago by the name of temp. A "User Accounts" popup was appeared that displayed following warning: "You chose to remove PETER-38FSGJQ2Y\Temp from this computer's user list. PETER-38FSGJQ2Y\Temp will no longer be allowed to use this computer. Are you sure you want to remove PETER-38FSGJQ2Y\Temp?" Since I was certain I wanted to delete the User Name "Temp," I pressed "Yes." It appears to me that User Name "Temp" was successfully removed, leaving only User Names - Administrator, ASPNET, and Dave. However, somehow my name, PETER, appeared in that "User Accounts" Popup when I removed the "Temp" account, and I'm betting my name -PETER- is also part of the path to the three remaining User Names. It is my Name that I wish to completely change and/or remove from this PC WITHOUT loosing any configuration settings for User Account DAVE or ASPNET or Administrator. -- Best regards, Peter Sale - "kchat" wrote ... Just delete the accounts you don't need anymore...run "control userpasswords2" in the run dialog box...delete as needed ...and then navigate to the "Documents and settings" folder to remove the users profiles ...renaming a user and assigning a new name would do too...else create a new user with the appropriate name... "Peter Sale" wrote: I created the "Peter A. Sale" user account around a year ago during my upgrade on that PC from Windows 98 SE to Windows XP Pro. That is, during the Windows XP Pro installation process, I was asked to create a User Account, and I chose to name that account Peter A. Sale. A short time later, I installed a program (PanoCube) that does not function properly if it or any of its data reside in a directory path that contains blank spaces, for example, "Peter A. Sale," so I attempted to shorten my User Account name to just "Peter." This did not resolve the problem with that application because I had initially installed that program into c:\Program Files\PanoCube and the data in c:\Documents and Settings\Peter A. Sale. Both of these directory paths contained spaces. I wound up installing the program and its data in c:\panocube, but I was left with c:\Documents and Settings\Peter A. Sale and later with c:\Documents and Settings\Peter. Now I want to change the user accounts on this compute to reflect its new owner, Dave, not its old owner, Peter or Peter A. Sale. -- Regards, Peter Sale Santa Monica, CA USA To email me, just pull 'my-leg.' "kchat" replied ... You don't have to delete a profile of a user account.. the best practice is just rename the account, that way you maintain the whole profile... you can do that by right clicking the MY COMPUTER icon and choose Manage, then expand "System tools" if not already, expand "Local Users and Groups" and click on "Users", right click the user account that you intend to change and click "Rename". If you delete a Profile the system will recreate it so in order to accomplish that, you first have to remove the account from within the "Users" in the previous console and then delete the user's profile... You don't provide much info on how you create/rename these accounts in order to figure out if something was wrong with the procedure... "Peter S." wrote: Once upon a time I owned a Dell 550 MHz PC running Windows XP Pro SP2. Recently, I sold this PC to a friend of mine. In the process of removing my name, Peter A. Sale (aka, Peter Sale) from every place that it appears in this PC, and replacing it with my friend's name, Dave, I have run into two final occurrences of my name (I hope these are the last occurrences). Since this was my PC, I set up my Windows XP user account (administrator) with my name, Peter A. Sale. Later, I attempted to change my user account name from Peter A. Sale to just Peter. Now I have two directories- Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter- that I want to "safely" remove from Dave's PC. I just checked, and there are four User Accounts currently defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). So my questions are as follows: 1. How can I completely and "safely" remove directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter replacing them with, say Dave? 2. Given the four User Accounts on this PC, why do the directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter even exist? -- Best regards, Peter Sale |
#7
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of oldPC?
Peter S. wrote:
Once upon a time I owned a Dell 550 MHz PC running Windows XP Pro SP2. Recently, I sold this PC to a friend of mine. In the process of removing my name, Peter A. Sale (aka, Peter Sale) from every place that it appears in this PC, and replacing it with my friend's name, Dave, I have run into two final occurrences of my name (I hope these are the last occurrences). Since this was my PC, I set up my Windows XP user account (administrator) with my name, Peter A. Sale. Later, I attempted to change my user account name from Peter A. Sale to just Peter. Now I have two directories- Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter- that I want to "safely" remove from Dave's PC. I just checked, and there are four User Accounts currently defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). So my questions are as follows: 1. How can I completely and "safely" remove directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter replacing them with, say Dave? 2. Given the four User Accounts on this PC, why do the directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter even exist? The user profile folders (C:\Documents and Settings\Username) _cannot_ be renamed, even if the associated user account has been. So, your best course of action would be to log on using the built-in Administrator account, create a new user account, with the username desired. You can then delete the old user account(s) and associated files. HOW TO Create and Configure User Accounts in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;279783 How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;811151 -- Bruce Chambers Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - RAH |
#8
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of old PC?
This technique sounds promising. However, there were only four User
Accounts defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). I say "were" because I successfully deleted the Temp(admin) account as I detailed in a previous post in this thread. That leaves no User Account named "Administrator" (built-in, or otherwise) to logon to. I'm speculating that a year ago I simply renamed the "built-in" Administrator User Account to "Dave Hopkins", but I don't really remember. After all, it was a year ago. That being said, if I logon to User Account "Dave Hopkins," create a new User Account named Administrator, and give it Administrator authority, won't this new Administrator User Account still put its files in a new folder in either of the currently existing paths "Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale" or "Documents and Settings|Peter"? It is existence of these paths (that contain my name) that I am attempting to remove from my friend Dave's PC. Remember that this is a very actively used PC with four email accounts on Outlook Express and perhaps hundreds of configuration settings that I do not wish to loose and/or mess up. -- Regards, Peter Sale Santa Monica, CA USA To email me, just pull 'my-leg.' "Bruce Chambers" wrote ... Peter S. wrote: Once upon a time I owned a Dell 550 MHz PC running Windows XP Pro SP2. Recently, I sold this PC to a friend of mine. In the process of removing my name, Peter A. Sale (aka, Peter Sale) from every place that it appears in this PC, and replacing it with my friend's name, Dave, I have run into two final occurrences of my name (I hope these are the last occurrences). Since this was my PC, I set up my Windows XP user account (administrator) with my name, Peter A. Sale. Later, I attempted to change my user account name from Peter A. Sale to just Peter. Now I have two directories- Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter- that I want to "safely" remove from Dave's PC. I just checked, and there are four User Accounts currently defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). So my questions are as follows: 1. How can I completely and "safely" remove directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter replacing them with, say Dave? 2. Given the four User Accounts on this PC, why do the directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter even exist? The user profile folders (C:\Documents and Settings\Username) _cannot_ be renamed, even if the associated user account has been. So, your best course of action would be to log on using the built-in Administrator account, create a new user account, with the username desired. You can then delete the old user account(s) and associated files. HOW TO Create and Configure User Accounts in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;279783 How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;811151 -- Bruce Chambers Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - RAH |
#9
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of old PC?
"Sharon F" replied...
On Mon, 20 Dec 2004 12:36:42 -0800, Peter S. wrote: Once upon a time I owned a Dell 550 MHz PC running Windows XP Pro SP2. Recently, I sold this PC to a friend of mine. In the process of removing my name, Peter A. Sale (aka, Peter Sale) from every place that it appears in this PC, and replacing it with my friend's name, Dave, I have run into two final occurrences of my name (I hope these are the last occurrences). Since this was my PC, I set up my Windows XP user account (administrator) with my name, Peter A. Sale. Later, I attempted to change my user account name from Peter A. Sale to just Peter. Now I have two directories- Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter- that I want to "safely" remove from Dave's PC. I just checked, and there are four User Accounts currently defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). So my questions are as follows: 1. How can I completely and "safely" remove directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter replacing them with, say Dave? 2. Given the four User Accounts on this PC, why do the directories Documents and Settings|Peter A. Sale and Documents and Settings|Peter even exist? When you logon to a newly created a user account, folders with corresponding names are created. If you later rename that account, the "friendly" name changes but the folder names remain the same. Create a new account for Dave. Delete your old accounts. -- Sharon F MS-MVP ~ Windows Shell/User --- Peter Sale replied ... After creating a new User Account for Dave, and prior to deleting my old User Accounts on this PC, what can I do to bring over ALL programs, emails, email accounts (for example, OE 6 & Office Small Business 2003) and configuration settings from the "old" User Account (Admin) that Dave has been using for the past eight months into the newly created User Account for Dave? The reason I want to be sure to get this right is that my friend (Dave) has just purchased a new 1.6 GHz Centrino notebook running Windows XP Pro SP2, and after I have "repaired" his desktop PC I plan to migrate all of Dave's User Account settings from his User Account on his old desktop to his newly created User Account on his new Notebook via the Windows XP Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (FAST). Obviously I would rather not migrate any references to me (Peter or Peter Sale) that remain on his old desktop over to his brand new notebook. -- Regards, Peter Sale Santa Monica, CA USA To email me, just pull 'my-leg.' |
#10
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of oldPC?
Peter Sale wrote:
This technique sounds promising. However, there were only four User Accounts defined on this PC- Dave Hopkins (admin), Temp (admin), ASP.NET (limited) and Guest (acct is off). I say "were" because I successfully deleted the Temp(admin) account as I detailed in a previous post in this thread. That leaves no User Account named "Administrator" (built-in, or otherwise) to logon to. I'm speculating that a year ago I simply renamed the "built-in" Administrator User Account to "Dave Hopkins", but I don't really remember. Yes, if there is no account named "Administrator, you must have renamed it, as the built-in Administrator account cannot be deleted. The built-in account should still be easily identifiable, however, from within the Computer Management Console. The account's description - unless you also changed it - should read "Built-in account for administering the computer/domain." Simply rename this account back to "Administrator." If you did change the description, as well as the account's name, a simple test would be to delete the account. If it can be deleted, it wasn't the built-in Administrator account. If you cannot delete it (and you're not currently logged in to it, then it's the built-in account. It is existence of these paths (that contain my name) that I am attempting to remove from my friend Dave's PC. Remember that this is a very actively used PC with four email accounts on Outlook Express and perhaps hundreds of configuration settings that I do not wish to loose and/or mess up. Right-click My Computer Properties Advanced User Profiles. Delete the profiles bearing your name. -- Bruce Chambers Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - RAH |
#11
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of old PC?
On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 07:42:40 -0800, Peter Sale wrote:
The reason I want to be sure to get this right is that my friend (Dave) has just purchased a new 1.6 GHz Centrino notebook running Windows XP Pro SP2, and after I have "repaired" his desktop PC I plan to migrate all of Dave's User Account settings from his User Account on his old desktop to his newly created User Account on his new Notebook via the Windows XP Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (FAST). Obviously I would rather not migrate any references to me (Peter or Peter Sale) that remain on his old desktop over to his brand new notebook. FAST will transfer settings and data to the user account of your choice. It's a good choice for this and Peter shouldn't show up anywhere except maybe mail settings (accounts within the email client). Mail account settings will transfer as they are now setup (minus passwords). If this is something you would encounter, create a mail account. Export/import old messages following the directions provided by the email program. -- Sharon F MS-MVP ~ Windows Shell/User |
#12
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Change user account names and directories in Windows XP of old PC?
On Tue, 21 Dec 2004 07:42:40 -0800, Peter Sale wrote:
I plan to migrate all of Dave's User Account settings from his User Account on his old desktop to his newly created User Account on his new Notebook via the Windows XP Files and Settings Transfer Wizard (FAST). PS: A good reference on using FAST has been written by Gary Woodruff and can be found he http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/fast.htm -- Sharon F MS-MVP ~ Windows Shell/User |
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