Change the name of a user in Windows SharePoint Services

If your company runs Project Server 2003 with Windows SharePoint Services enabled you benefit from all the great functionality provided by WSS such as risk, issue and document management for all your projects. But if you ever have to change the name of a resource in the Project Server resource pool you will first find it strange that the name will not be updated on the SharePoint sites. Confusion will grow even more if you try deleting the user from the specific SharePoint site and expect the name to change once you added the user again. This article will help you on what you need to do if you encounter this problem.

The key to solving this issue is knowing that SharePoint has its own table storing user information. This table is called 'UserInfo' and can be found in the WSS content database that is created when installing WSS.

Connect to the computer running SQL Enterprise Manager and navigate to the WSS content database. Run the following query against the 'UserInfo' table:

UPDATE UserInfo SET tp_title = 'new name' WHERE tp_title= 'old name'

This will change the user's name for both objects that are already existing and objects that are created.

Stay tuned for more helpful tips & tricks...