moving the 'Users' folder from c: to another drive

[JonnyRock]

I want to move the users folder from C: to D:.

i read, on another forum, that this could be done like so...

Lets imagine you have a PC with 3 accounts.
One is a plain admin account, (administrator) another is an account you have created for the move (adminmove) and the other is a boggo ussr account (user)
Shut down PC (important)
Fire up PC, log on as administrator. Run regedit and go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
Change profilesdirectory to the new location. Any new users will now have their profiles go there.
go to your documents and settings folder. copy the adminmove and user folders to the new location. You will not get errors about files being locked UNLESS you have services using any of these user accounts to log on. To find out if you do go start>run>services.msc and make sure the log on as section uses no user accounts there.
Leave the S-15-18, S-15-19 and S-15-20 subkeys alone. Those profiles take up next to no space and I wouldn't risk changing them.
You will see some S-15-XX-blah subkeys. These are for the user accounts that exist on the computer. Within each key is a ProfileImagepath REG_EXPAND_SZ
Change these for all but the account you are logged on as.
Shutdown and restart the PC. Log on as adminmove.
start>run>cmd
type set and make sure the USERPROFILE shows the new location.
Move the administrator folder from documents and settings to the new location. Go into regedit again and change the profileimagepath for the administrator account.
Job done. If you want you can delete the profile for the adminmove account and delete the user. Use My computer/properties to delete the profile though. Do not use windows explorer

P.S. If you are determined to move the localservice and networkservice folders, boot in safe mode

​

This was posted by badass - Move the entire Documents and Settings folder to a different partition? - HEXUS.community discussion forums

What i did was boot linux mint 7 live cd and copy the users folder from C: to D: i then went back into windows 7 and did the reg changes.

it works, but all users now use now "Users\Public" and not there own Users folders and i get this error on log.

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21787

​

Can ayone help resolve this issue?

thanks,

JR

 

[petrossa]

i guess you're better off creating a user folder yourself and leave the registry alone.
Just assign your folder as user default folder, leave the original intact.

You are going in at the deep end here.

 

[mickey megabyte]

i wanted to move my users folder to another partition too, but after doing a bit of research, i decided it looked too hairy and troublesome.

so i compromised and only moved my documents, pictures, videos and music folders, and left the root users folder where it was.

 

[JonnyRock]

mickey megabyte - that is what i was doing, but it dose not do what i need.

I need any user/new user that logs onto the system to be running from D: by default with no user interaction.

I am willing to learn here, so if anyone has any ideas or could help, please do.

 

[mickey megabyte]

sorry, i run a single-user machine so i don't know about new users.

is there still a guest account option?

 

[JonnyRock]

in deed there is

 

[mickey megabyte]

well, can you move guest's documents and photos, and all new users have to use guest account?

 

[petrossa]

mickey megabyte - that is what i was doing, but it dose not do what i need.

I need any user/new user that logs onto the system to be running from D: by default with no user interaction.

I am willing to learn here, so if anyone has any ideas or could help, please do.

use this panel:

 

[Zidane24]

use this panel:

Nice theme...what is that?

 

[Frostbite]

I believe this is what you want. I would make sure you backup your system before you give it a go.
Change User Profile Folder Location in Vista « Joshua Mouch

Personal User Shell Folders - Move Location - Vista Forums

and also How to Change User Profile Default Location in Windows 7 | Windows 7 Hacker if it's a fresh install.

 

[petrossa]

Nice theme...what is that?

http://www.wincustomize.com/skins.aspx?skinid=6893&libid=1

 

[petrossa]

I believe this is what you want. I would make sure you backup your system before you give it a go.
Change User Profile Folder Location in Vista « Joshua Mouch

and also How to Change User Profile Default Location in Windows 7 | Windows 7 Hacker if it's a fresh install.

quote from someone who tried it:

Hi people

I have done the steps explained above. All works ok apart from various little problems that I have notice every now and then. For example, if I go to Devices and Printers, the page stays blank and seems to continue to load forever. My programs also have a tendancy to become more unstable and crash more often.

Have anyone else noticed things like these ?
unquote

Please don't hack the registry if you are not completely sure what you are doing, and NEVER EVER do it as admin for an enterprise.

It can get you fired double quick.

 

[Meyithi]

I'm pretty sure a Symbolic Link would work, my Program Files and Program Files (x86) folders are on a seperate drive to Windows on my box with no complaints at all.

NTFS symbolic link - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[petrossa]

I'm pretty sure a Symbolic Link would work, my Program Files and Program Files (x86) folders are on a seperate drive to Windows on my box with no complaints at all.

NTFS symbolic link - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

no need for that, you just change the environment variables to point to your program files folders.

 

[DJG]

use this panel:

Unfortunately I can only delete mine, not copy to.

 

[doakh]

Would it be easier and less risky to add your data/document locations to the 'Libraries' and make them the default location? This is what I did. I do not have any thing in the C:/Users/ locations.

 

[petrossa]

Would it be easier and less risky to add your data/document locations to the 'Libraries' and make them the default location? This is what I did. I do not have any thing in the C:/Users/ locations.

Exactly my thoughts. Well done Junior Member

 

[darkassain]

hmm
actually i have done this (actually did this for the beta) and it does work but dont move any other accounts (such as the system accounts) as this sometimes upsets updates...

 

[geometrikal]

On my old vista install I had a few directories from my user directory (Documents etc) moved onto another partition with the change location settings in the "Documents" etc properties dialog.

This worked well except some programs didn't obey the new setting and still stored stuff in the old Douments folder location, creating a new folder in the process. I got around this my making a symbolic link from the old Douments location to the new one and hiding it ...

Now I see that the easier way would be to move the entire Users directory to the separate partion and make a new symbolic link to it in the old location.

eg:

cd c:\
xcopy c:\Users\*.* d:\Users /e /i /h
rmdir /s c:\Users
mklink /d Users d:\Users

But before I go ahead and wreck my computer... I just deleted the My Documents folder before and had a hard time getting it back - I had to create a new folder called Documents and then use restore ... has anyone done this and does it work? Have I used the right switches to make sure everything is copied over?

 

[RootAdmin]

copy everything to the 2nd hd, and mount the hd's partition as the users folder using the disk management tool