Back to basics - going back to C:\Users

[mediaman09]

When I first stared using Windows 7, I had my personal data files under the default C:\Users.

This worked worked well for a bir, except it made my backups very cumbersome. I later realized I wanted to have the ‘system files” on one drive (C drive) and my data files in another (D Drive).

In hindsight, I should have simply moved my data files to D:\UserData

However, in my eagerness, I didn’t do that, and instead, I followed the tips here http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html , and relocated my default User directory to D:\Users

That was a mistake on my part. I had some now-resolved, close-calls when I first did this ( could not get into the computer – corrupt or missing profile)) . All has been working ok ever since, except for two things:

a) backing up the \Users directryr means bakving up the AppData (and other 'system/app' directories in the process, and these tend to get a lot of temp files in them, slowing down my routine "data backups: to a crawl;

b) something got messed up along the way, which I did not see at the time. re AppData\Roaming and the alias link to it re Application Data.. For example, I just installed an app yesterday that didn’t work – traced it down to an ini file that appeared under Application Data and yet did not appear in AppDate\Roaming.
​

All this to say, I want to move the Users directory back to its native C:\Users location, and want to simply keep my personal data on D:\UserData.

Do I simply follow the instruction in http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html ??? How do ensure I don’t lock myself out again.

 

[Brink]

Hello Mediaman,

If you used the tutorial below to move your C:\Users\(user-name) profile folder, then yes would use the same one to change it back to the default location instead.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/87555-user-profile-change-default-location.html


When finished, I would recommend to just have your data in folders on D: , and just include those folders in the appropriate library. You could also set the folder to be the default "Save" folder for the library if you like. This way you will not have to worry about moving user folders.

 

[mediaman09]

Thanks

Any tricks to avoid getting deined access due to it not being able to find my profile as part of this process?

I have mutilple users set up just in case, but I think lqst time, all user profile were simply not seen.

LAt time, I think I had to do a safe mode boot and drill down into some registry settinga .... all I know is things were prerty tense there for a while.. trying to avoid that this time.

 

[Brink]

If you follow the steps exactly, it should only affect the local user account profile that you're moving without getting this error. I hope it goes smoother for you this round.

 

[mediaman09]

Thaanks

Question - I may have missed it, but I did recall reading anything in the tutorial about need to change the %AppData% environment variable.

I think I messed that part up last time as its currently set to : D:\Users\{username}\AppData\

…and I think it should have been set to:
D:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming

..and I should now reset it to :

C:\Users\{username}\AppData\Roaming

 

[Brink]

Nope, you were not suppose to mess with the environment variables.

You should use this below instead so it will not matter what the location of the user profile is.

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming

Could you post a screenshot showing this first just to make sure though?