November 26, 2013

Tips & Tricks: How to override current user account to use it in the messenger

We already described in the past a similar situation and advised to use Private login and password as a personal  authentication for a user if he needs to do not use his current logon name in Windows. Read that article at Tips & Tricks: How to get users connected under different IM accounts if they have the same Windows logon name

That solution works fine but sometimes it is required to keep existing authentication and just override user account name. For example, a user can be renamed in Windows but the system is continued using his old logon name everywhere except Welcome screen. And there is no bug because user account must be migrated but not renamed if we want to use a new logon name in Windows and installed applications. There are also many useful and helpful articles on the net that explain that Existing user account names: Don't rename them, migrate them. But anyway, if we only renamed the user how to force the messenger to use his new logon name? That's possible!

Starting from earlier versions both Bopup Messenger and Bopup Observer support a hidden option in system registry that allows to overwrite current user account that would be used by the IM client. The setting named "OverwrittenAccount" and must be created in application's root under HKCU key:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\B Labs\Bopup Messenger]
"OverwrittenAccount"="desired-im-account"


where "desired-im-account" is the new user name that would override his current name in Windows. This solution works perfectly if Simple authentication is enabled on the communication server and using it a user will be able to continue connect to the IM server smoothly and fast like he logged prior renaming the account.

You can also download the registry file from our website, modify and apply it on users' computers https://www.bopup.com/files/override-account.reg

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