Title: default user — admin
Last modified: August 19, 2016

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# default user — admin

 *  [TheyKeepMovingTheCheese](https://wordpress.org/support/users/theykeepmovingthecheese/)
 * (@theykeepmovingthecheese)
 * [15 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/default-user-admin/)
 * i used the ‘5-min install’ when i set up my account and site. at every juncture,
   i carefully read the instructions, and those instructions assured me that some
   key pieces of info were able to later be changed if i needed to, so i picked 
   some defaults–thinking it would be best to start that way and then change as 
   i learned more.
 * i spent a couple of weeks now getting my site ready…i’m almost there! and then
   i saw i should be upgrading. i read up about wp upgrades, and noticed that there
   was previously a bunch of hacking going on due to so many people using the default
   sign-in of ‘admin’ — making the hacking job easy. Needless to say, that was one
   of my defaults.
 * so… i went back to change my username, and now discover that user names cannot
   be changed! what can i do? what’s the fix–given i have a ton of time invested
   in this. i am still too inexperienced to make any big changes, and i am quite
   nervous about losing all the work i did on my site if i have to make any complex
   or risky changes.
 * i hope i’m not the only one to recently make this mistake.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

 *  [esmi](https://wordpress.org/support/users/esmi/)
 * (@esmi)
 * [15 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/default-user-admin/#post-1855515)
 * Change Admin Username: [http://w-shadow.com/blog/2008/07/24/change-admin-username-in-wordpress/](http://w-shadow.com/blog/2008/07/24/change-admin-username-in-wordpress/)
 * Install, use and then delete.
 *  Thread Starter [TheyKeepMovingTheCheese](https://wordpress.org/support/users/theykeepmovingthecheese/)
 * (@theykeepmovingthecheese)
 * [15 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/default-user-admin/#post-1855518)
 * hi –
 * thanks for getting back so quickly!!
 * i read that some of those who used this app had some (apparently minor) issues.
   not sure if i want to run into something unexpected later due to it not being
   comprehensive, but if nothing else can work, i will prob take the chance.
 * i did finally find a post on this forum from back 3 years ago that talked about
   setting up a second administrative account, and then deleting the orig ‘admin’.
   given, i already do have another administrative account signed up anyway…that
   would really be the easist.
 * so, can i just delete the orig user, or would the database encounter errors when
   trying to access that orig, non-existent admin??? in other words, isn’t my whole
   account tied to the ‘admin’ profile, and if so, if deleted, would it not make
   my situation worse?
 * it also gave an option of a sql command to replace the username. the command 
   line looked easy enough, but i have no idea how to access and ‘talk’ to the sql
   server, and experimenting on my admin account with unfamiliar tools isn’t very
   appealing. lol
 * yes, i’m a wimp–i would like to take the easy way here. yet i don’t want to make
   things worse in the future just to save some grief now.
 * thank you for being there for us!
 * ——————
    edit — (i’m not well-versed in this stuff, and it takes time to figure
   out what is being explained since i don’t know a lot of the basics). after yet
   more reading, i now understand that the plugin does exactly that change to the
   sql database — it runs an app that will make the change for me. interesting…then
   i wonder why some of the errors?
 * anyway…what about changing to another admin–is that better or worse?
 * thanks!

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)

The topic ‘default user — admin’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [admin](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/admin/)
 * [user name](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/user-name/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 2 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [TheyKeepMovingTheCheese](https://wordpress.org/support/users/theykeepmovingthecheese/)
 * Last activity: [15 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/default-user-admin/#post-1855518)
 * Status: not resolved

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