Windows 7: User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation

Welcome to Seven Forums rsaritzky.
That's not a silly question, I used a USB flash drive to do this too. Yes, Windows 7 should assign letter F to your USB drive. If not, make note of what letter is does get and edit the answer file.

A while back when I upgraded my mobo and CPU, along with adding an SSD to my system, I used this tutorial successfully. I intend to either buy the pre-order Windows 8 Pro upgrade Retail Box w/ Disk that Micro Center is offering for $38.88 or wait until after Christmas and download the Windows 8 Pro upgrade from Windows.com for $39.99 and make my own backup copy.

I just wish to know if Kari, Britton30, or anyone else can confirm whether the upgrade will go smoothly with Users and ProgramData folders located on my HDD and the other system folders installed to my SSD.

If not, can I move my Users and ProgramData folders over to the SSD and successfully upgrade, or will I need to move what I wish to keep from my SSD to my HDD, reformat the SSD, do a clean install of Windows 7 from disk/usb and then upgrade from the Windows 8 upgrade disk/usb?



And, if the upgrade goes smoothly without migrating the Users and ProgramData folders over to my SSD, am I correct to assume that the Windows 8 will install in its entirety to the SSD, or will it actually install its relative system folders across my SSD and HDD in a similar fashion as my Windows 7 install is currently split?

Finally, it dawns upon me that I used this tutorial without coming back to thank you Kari for your valuable information. That was unintentionally rude of me, but better late than never, if you will permit. Thank you.

I'm not sure how to go about an upgrade, I've asked Kari, the author, to have a look.

@ KantversusHume:

I really do not know, haven't tried yet an in-place upgrade from 7 with relocated Users to 8. One thing I know is that on 8, Windows Store does not work and most of so called Metro apps do not work when ProgramData is relocated, looks like 8 wants it to be on C:.

I have in-place upgraded Vista (both ProgramData and Users relocated) to 7 without any problems, so I guess also 7 to 8 should go just fine. Might be a good idea to move (relocate) ProgramData back to its original location before upgrading simply by running the sysprep again for reasons told above.

This answer file / script moves ProgramData back to its default location on C: drive:
Kari

Thanks for the response y'all. Per your advice Kari, I will likely move ProgramData back to C Drive. That said, it will likely be a couple of months before I upgrade (just wanted to get a physical copy of the the upgrade while it was on sale for the same price as the download promotion going on through January).

Kari, if you--or anyone else who reads this--do choose to do an in-place upgrade from Window 7 to Window 8 with Users and/or ProgramData from Windows 7 still relocated prior to the upgrade, please post your results here, so long as you don't mind adding those to this thread.

Please Help! Need to set up a stable & Recoverable system & partition ideas if setup has Win 7 on 120GB SSD with User Files on 2 TB HDD? Am sort of a novice & an visual learner so screen shots would be helpful. Been putting all this off till I find all information to do it right the first time.

New build, am planning on using script to relocate User folders during install, this seemed to work well when I did it to a friends CPU,....one question is what optimizations do I do for the SSD I plan I on using Crucial 128 M4 SSD.

The SSD Optimization Guide Redesigned @ The SSD Review « The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource. The SSD Review all these still advisable to do as well as safe to use on the Crucial 128 M4 SSD?

My Main ? is how to partition 2TB WD Black, such as to have my user files on a partition w/ some programs, maybe, need partition with an image of the OS,and one for a backup info on set up for incremental backup, or whatever is best option??, I have external 1 TB drive as well.Worries 1)How to clone if it has its user files on D. 2) best way to partition for stability, recover-ability ( never did much with cloning or drive backup before...I know, shame on me!Screen shots help greatly, I have neurological issue MS so please be patient. Anyone's help would be great on this matter.

Tried this method on Windows 8 Pro and it generates a fatal error. Any suggestions for a workaround?

Hey, I used the Relocate User folders during Windows 7 installation.pdf when installing Windows 7 and everything went great and has been for a couple years now. However, today I was going to upgrade my SSD and somehow Windows now can't find the user profile location and it just logs me in to the default desktop. The only thing I had done toward the SSD swap was swapping around some SATA cords and plugging in the new drive.

The user folders are all there where they used to be but I get a message saying C:\Windows\system32\config\systemfrofile\Desktop refers to a location that is unavailable. Etc...

Any idea how to get everything pointed in the right direction again?

I did some more digging, and my profile is defaulting to backup status. Other profiles are working fine. When looking in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows_NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList I see a .bak profile with a ProfileImagePath pointing to the correct location and another profile of the same name except not a .bak and it doesn't point to the correct location.

I found some directions on how to fix it, but I thought I'd run it by you guys first.

To solve the problem, login to an administrator account other than the one that has the issue.

Next modify the key name that doesn't have the .bak to .ba.



Now Rename the key that HAS the .bak and remove the .bak.



Finally modify the key name that HAS the .ba to .bak



Once that is done, you will need to modify a few more things in the key without the .bak.

We need to change the RefCount to 0

We need to clear the state in State to 0

Now its time to reboot and try to login.
Windows 7 Profiles Wont Load. Stuck with Backup Status. — Micro IT Blog

Can this script be run again, or undone? I have a few problems.