User Folder Details

[john77059]

I need some direction (or reassurance) about setting up a new Win 7 system using an older Win 7 user folder.

I had Win 7 Ultimate on an HP with the user folders on a separate internal drive. The HP died; the drive with the user folders is intact. This user folder has almost 400 GB of data that we need to keep as is. (My wife's a video producer with several projects in work.)

I bought a new Lenovo with Win 7 Home Premium. I set up user accounts (on the system drive) and then added the drive with the HP user accounts. I made the necessary registry changes to access the added drive for user folders. Upon booting, I checked the properties of my user folder on the drive I added and it reported 0 bytes!! I didn't want to risk losing that data so I shut it down. My original user folder still has everything I want and need.

I know the user folder has data for my applications. Is there data in the user folder specific for the computer I'm on? If so, what do I merge from the Lenovo user folder with my big user folder? If not, was the "0 byte report" a fluke?

Also, would I be better off installing all my applications before incorporating this big user folder? I have not yet installed the Adobe software that will be using most of the data in the user folder.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

 

[gregrocker]

Did you link your new Win7 User folders to the old ones using this procedure? User Folders - Change Default Location

 

[john77059]

gregrocker - Thanks for the prompt reply.

I followed that procedure generally, but not exactly.

I copied only one folder and one sub-folder from the C: drive to my new destination. (My new destination was the drive containing the original user folder from the failed PC.) I want to retain the contents of the original user folder so I didn't copy everything. After saving the original Desktop folder, I copied the new Desktop folder. The original user folder contains the same (and more) folders as the C: drive user folder. I copied C:\AppData\Local\Lenovo to the new default location because the original user folder did not have that. I did make the registry changes per the procedure. Upon rebooting, Explorer reported 0 bytes for the user folder in the changed location. I stopped there and decided to ask for help.

 

[gregrocker]

You need to follow the procedure outlined in the tutorial on the new install's User folders.

Either copy your files into the new OS's User sub-folders first, or after linking them following the exact steps given.

I do not copy over AppData folders into a new install as it is a corruption path from an older install into a brand new clean install. Best to start over with fresh settings.