How to Change the Owner Information in Microsoft Windows

Sometimes a computer will change hands, or change ownership. The computer could be sold on EBay, sold at a second hand store or even donated to good will. These are all valid scenarios where the old computer owners name and organization would need to be changed. This is not something simple that Microsoft has created a procedure for, but it can be done quite simply.

This applies to Windows 2000 and up. You can do this procedure in versions of Windows below 2000 but the directions are different. This procedure involves editing the registry so I highly recommend you back up the registry before we begin.

To backup the registry, go to your start button and up to run. Type in regedit and hit okay. Once the registry editor is open go to the file menu and choose export. Name the file something like "registry_backup" and append the date to the end of the name. This way you will know when it was backed up. I recommend saving it on some removable media such as a CD or thumb drive.

Now that the registry is backed up we can begin the procedure. The first thing we want to do is click the plus next to the Hkey_Local_Machine level. This will drop a number of folders down below it. Next click the plus next to the Software folder. Then click the plus next to the Microsoft folder. Scroll down to where it says Windows NT and click on the plus next to that folder. You should have just one folder below this level called Current Version. Select this folder and you should see several entries in the right window of the registry editor. The entries we are looking for are "RegisteredOrganization" and "RegisteredOwner." To change the values of these entries double click on the name and an edit string window will pop up. Replace the value data with the proper information and hit okay.

The changes will take effect once you reboot your computer. If you would like to know for sure that this information now shows, there is a place you can look. If you right click on my computer and choose properties it will open the System Properties window. On the general tab it will show the owner name and organization. Hopefully it will show the values you input into the registry (after rebooting). If not, go check to make sure the changes were saved and reboot again.

The owner name and organization should now be updated so they are correct. Be very careful editing the registry because one incorrect change to something in the registry could have dire consequences. Thanks for reading and enjoy.