appdata relocation

wow not posted in this section for ages!

Anyway I was just wondering if you can relocate the folder as mine is pretty large and I have 30gb left on my SSD. Are there any potential pitfalls in doing this?

Try it and see.

I would not move any components of the OS to another drive, including Programs which become integrated when they write Reg Keys during install.

If my AppData was burgeoning, I would consider a cleaner meaner reinstall. Or at least browse the folder to see what Programs are using the most space to reconsider those. Temp folders can also be emptied.

this is a fresh install though

Ill create a restore point and give it a try.

Ive actually just looked in the folder's properties and theres no location tab. So other than registry hacking (which Im loathe to do) there appears no usual way to relocate it.

Disable System Restore. I have a 64 GB SSD in my laptop, running Professional x64, and I am using about half of the drive. I have 32 GB free, and it is running fine. I disable system restore on all of my systems, but that's besides the point.

Turning off System Restore should be a very specialized and personal decision, given the number of systems we help rescue here regularly with System Restore. I save one of my own a couple of times per year with it.

A better direction for the average user would be to enlarge the disk space used by SysRestore at Computer>Properties>System Protection>Configure so it saves more points for longer. I set my installs at 20%.

gregrocker said:

Turning off System Restore should be a very specialized and personal decision, given the number of systems we help rescue here regularly with System Restore. I save one of my own a couple of times per year with it.

That's a personal preference as well. System Restore has been crap for me and has never worked. I prefer to fix the error, rather than roll back to a time right before it happens.

gregrocker said:

A better direction for the average user would be to enlarge the disk space used by SysRestore at Computer>Properties>System Protection>Configure so it saves more points for longer. I set my installs at 20%.

But this is on an SSD, where space is limited. Increasing would definitely be out of the question. Most SSD guides recommend disabling system restore anyway. It honestly isn't needed, and considering it's high rate of failure to fix the issue...there's little point to using it, especially giving up 20% of your drive. If the system doesn't boot, you can repair it. If the system does boot, you can fix the problems. Given that Windows 7 now includes a nice system imaging tool and external drives are so cheap, System Restore became even more expendable.

I gave the following steps to someone for relocating their AppData folder, and it supposedly worked for them...

First, enable the "Show hidden files and folders" option in the Folder Options so we know we're getting all the files copied over correctly. Then, the process is as follows (assuming the drive you are moving the files to is given the letter 'D' and <username> should be substituted with your username):


1) Copy the C:\Users\<username>\AppData folder to your D:\ drive so that the D:\AppData folder is created. A simple copy and paste in explorer should work fine.

2) Perform the directory junction via an Admin command prompt by typing the following:
mklink /J "C:\Users\<username>\AppDatae" "D:\AppData"


That should work. If it doesn't, you may need to delete the original directory before making the directory junction in step 2 by typing the following command in an Admin command prompt:

rmdir "C:\Users\<username>\AppData" /S /Q

hmm I think ill leave it until i get desperate.