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System-Data separation strategies
There are now many different ways of separating Users' data from the rest of the system data usually to another drive. Sevenforums has excellent tutorials on each, so let's put together some data about the pros and cons of them all....
In no particular order :Also note that (1) and (2) are very similar, in that (1) is (2) plus actually moving the Users folder.
- User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation - By Kari - This one moves the ENTIRE users folder using sysprep. Complete and supported, but blocks upgrades and refresh (windows 8)
- User Folders - Change Default Location - By Brink - This one moves those user's folders (C:\Users\{username}) created AFTER the edit to another location. Less drastic, not supported (involves registry editing), and still blocks upgrades and refresh. Corollary : User Folders - Moving User Folders by Modular Script - By Alain Quarré - Also changes the symlinked shortcuts, and sets permissions, and lots of other small things that can make it perfect.
- User Folders - Change Default Location - By Brink - Moves all the folders inside the profile (Documents, Desktop, etc.) to a different location. Supported, no system-level downsides (need to test this), but labour intensive... Also, AppData continues to grow.
- Funnily, you CAN move AppData folders, properties applet of Local, LocalLow, and Roaming have a Location tab, where you can choose a different place, and move it. Supported, no system-level downsides (? need to test this), but labour intensive... Also, not sure if it's a good idea... Is AppData user data or system data?
- The Library approach (thanks to whs for reminding me) - Keeping all user-generated data in other folders and including them in Libraries. But it's easy to keep saving/putting stuff in the default folders. The save-to locations can be changed to remedy this. However, applications may not go through libraries. Eg. Outlook, which would have to be manually configured.
- http://lifehacker.com/5467758/move-t...y-in-windows-7 - Anon? - Basically using an NTFS junction point link, This one achieves a similar effect to method (1) , but seems to give mysterious error _sometimes_ . Other times it works better than the sysprep idea. It fools virtually all programs, with only windows updates occasionally finding something out of the ordinary.
Let's make this an authoritative thread on the tradeoffs involved.
Last edited by milindsmart; 04 Sep 2014 at 08:22.