Changing your gender is less risky than changing your Windows userid

Rob [1] is planning on setting up a file server (running Linux) for the Facility int he Middle of Nowhere that needs to support both Unix and Windows. Nothing terribly difficult, and Samba [2] is getting easier to configure with the passing years.

Only problem is that the userid on my Windows system does not match the one on the Unix systems, but it doesn't seem to be that big of an issue—Samba looks like it can map between Windows and Unix userids so nothing has to change on my Windows system.

Only that feature in Samba doesn't seem to be working very well. Or at all. As a test, Rob creates a userid on the Linux file server and I can mount the drive under Windows (or “access the share” in Windows lingo). I would prefer to use the Unix userid under Windows though. Okay, change the userid under Windows.

Something I would think would be simple. It's pretty straightforward under Unix but apparently it's not something to triffle with under Windows. Once you set your userid, that's it. It's carved in stone for all eternity (or until the next time you reinstall Windows to fix some other simple problem like moving the mouse unexpectedly).

No. It's clone the existing userid and under no circumstance should you ever, ever, even think of deleting the orginal userid, or the folders to conserve disk space.

I found that out the hard way.

[1] http://www.tragic-smurfs.com/

[2] http://www.samba.org/

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