User Profile - Change Default Location

How to Change the Default Location of a User Profile in Vista and Windows 7​

   Information

A user profile is the main C:\Users\(user-name) folder of a user account that contains all of the account's settings, shortcuts, information, and user folders (ex: My Music) with the files in them.

This will show you how to Move the default location of a user profile in Windows 7 and Vista to another location of your choice so it will be stored and used from the new location instead.

This can be handy if you are low on free space on your C: drive.

You must be logged in as an administrator to be able to do the steps in this tutorial.

   Warning

Before doing this, you should create a system image to be safe. This way you can do a system image recovery to undo any mistake you might make in the instructions below that could result in the user profile you are moving, or Windows, to no longer work.

   Note

The drive or partition that you move the user profile folder(s) to, will now be included in a system image if created since it will now be considered a system drive.

   Tip

If you are just wanting to save HDD space from the files in your user folders, then you might consider this below to be able to access the files from your libraries with the files actually located where you like instead. This way you will not have to worry about any potential issues that come with moving user folder locations.

• Create a new folder at any location you want.
• Move any files you want into the new folder.
• Include the new folder into a library of your choice.
• If you like, you can also set the new folder to be the default "save" to location for the library as well.

OPTION ONE

For Already Existing User Accounts

   Warning

Some of the programs you have installed may not work properly after moving your user profile folder since they are still looking for their information in the user profile folder's original AppData folder location which of course no longer exists.

If you have this problem afterwards, then you may be able to uninstall and reinstall these programs, or use OPTION TWO in the tutorial to create a new user account and create new shortcuts for the programs to fix this.

Method One

To Change the Default Location of an Existing User Profile

1. Log on to the user account that you want to move. In Windows Explorer, navigate to it's C:\Users\(user-name) folder, right click on the user folder, click on Share with and Nobody.

2. Log off.

3. Log on to an administrator account that you are not moving it's user folder for.
NOTE: If you do not have another administrator account to use, then you will need to create a new account first and log in to it. When done with the tutorial, you can delete the new account.

4. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the C:\Users\(user-name) folder (ex: C:\Users\User account to move) that you want to move. Right click on it and click on Copy. (see screenshot below)

5. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the new location (ex: E: drive) that you want to move the C:\Users\(user-name) folder to. Right click on a empty space in the main window (middle), and click on Paste. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: This should be another internal hard drive or partition.

6. If prompted, click on Continue. (see screenshot below)

7. If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes (Windows 7) or Continue (Vista).

8. The C:\Users\(user-name) folder (step 4) is now copied over to the new location (ex: E:\User account to move). You can close Windows Explorer. (see screenshot below)

9. Open the Start Menu, then type regedit in the search box and press enter.

10. If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes (Windows 7) or Continue (Vista).

11. In regedit, navigate to the location below. (see screenshot below)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

12. In the left pane under the Profilelist key, select and look at each S-1-5 key with the long number until you see the user account name and path (step 3) that you want to move in the value Data column of ProfileImagePath in the right pane. When the correct user name is found, right click on ProfileImagePath, and click on Modify. (see screenshot above)

13. Type in the full path of the location (ex: E:\User account to move) that you copied the user profile folder to in step 7, and click on OK. (see screenshot below)

14. Regedit will now look similiar to this with the new location now. Close regedit. (see screenshot below)

15. To Verify that the User Profile has been Moved Successfully
A) Log off or Switch User, then log in to the user account that you moved the user profile folder of.

B) Open the Start Menu and open the user profile folder from this location. (see screenshot below)

C) Right click on one of the user folders (ex: Desktop), click on Properties, and click on the Location tab. (see screenshot below)

D) You should see the new location (ex: E:\User account to move\Desktop) from step 8 as the now new default location. Click on OK. (see screenshot above)
16. To Delete the User Profile from the Old Location
NOTE: Once you have verified (step 15) that the moved user profile has been moved successfully, you can now safely delete the user profile folder from the old location (ex: C:\Users\User account to move) from step 4.
A) Log off of the user account that you moved if you are logged into it from step 15.

B) Log on to an administrator account that you did not move it's user folder for.

C) In Windows Explorer, navigate to the old C:\Users\(user-name) folder (ex: C:\Users\User account to move) that you had copied (step 4). Right click on it and click on Delete. (see screenshot below)

D) If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes (Windows 7) or Continue (Vista).

E) If prompted, click on Continue. (see screenshot below)

F) You can now empty the Recycle Bin to finish deleting the old user profile folder from the old location.
NOTE: You will need to approve emptying the Recycle Bin.
17. The existing user profile folder has now been completely moved to the new default location where Windows 7 or Vista will now run it from when logged on to it.

Method Two

To Restore the Existing User Profile's Default Location

1. Repeat OPTION ONE, but move the new default User Profile folder (ex: E:\User account to move) and registry entries back to the original C:\Users folder location (ex: C:\Users\User account to move).

OPTION TWO

For All New User Accounts Created

   Note

This will change where all newly created user accounts will have their user profile folder created at in a default location of your choice instead of the old default C:\Users location.

Thank you to Alain for pointing this out.

1. To Change the Default User Profile Location of New User Accounts
A) Open the Start Menu, then type regedit in the search box and press enter.
B) If prompted by UAC, then click on Yes (Windows 7) or Continue (Vista).

C) In regedit, navigate to the location below. (see screenshot below)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

D) In the right pane of ProfileList, right click on ProfilesDirectory and click on Modify. (see screenshot above)

E) Type in the full path (ex: E:\Users) of where you want new user accounts to be created at, and click on OK. (see screenshot below)

F) The registry will now look similar to this. (see screenshot below)

G) When you create a new user account, it's user profile folder will now be created at the location you specified in step 1E.
2. To Restore the Default User Profile Location of New User Accounts
A) Repeat step 1, but type %SystemDrive%\Users at step 1E instead.
NOTE: This step only changes the user profile folder location of any newly created user accounts back to this default location, and not any existing user accounts.

B) If you wish to change an already existing new account's user profile folder location, then you will need to do Method Two in OPTION ONE above to change it back to C:\Users.
3. Close regedit.

That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Customize Default User Profile in Audit Mode
• How to Change the Default Location of Windows 7 User Folders
• How to Restore the Default Location of Windows 7 User Folders
• How to Change the Windows 7 Default User Folder Icons
• How to Pin Your User Files Folder to the Windows 7 Taskbar
• How to Create Your Own Special User Folder
• How to Restore Windows 7 Default User Folder Icons
• How to Add or Remove your User Folder from the Windows 7 Navigation Pane
• How to Allow or Prevent Users to Move their User Folders to a New Location
• How to Add or Remove "User Folder" from Desktop Context Menu
• How to Create User Accounts on another Partition or Disk During Windows 7 Installation
• How to Free Up and Recover Hard Drive Space in Windows 7
• How to Change the User Folder Name of a User Profile in Windows 7

 

[Brink]

RHE,

I would recommend to do the system image recovery to go back before you moved the user profile to undo this to see if the error message goes away afterwards.

Personally, it would be best to have folders on say E: included in a library instead of moving user folders.

 

[richierein]

Hi Brink,

Thank you for making this information available.

I followed your instructions exactly but two files still remain open in the 'Downloads' folder even after restarting the computer. The files are 'M4-Capture.exe' and 'M4-Service.exe'. What is keeping them open and how can I close them so they can be deleted without doing any damage?

 

[Brink]

Hello Richie, and welcome to Seven Forums.

After Googling a bit, those files appear to be for the program Mikogo. You might see if the instructions in the PDF file below from Mikogo can help stop them so that you could delete them. They claim this issue will be fixed in a newer version of the program though.

http://www.mikogo.com/downloads/mikogo-m4service.pdf


If not, then you could try using the free program Unlocker on them to delete them.

 

[richierein]

Thank you

Thanks Brink. I shoulda, coulda, woulda thought of that myself.

Richie

 

[Brink]

Nar, that's what we're here for. You're most welcome Richie.

 

[richierein]

Change default location of C:\Users\Public

Hi Brink,

I semi-successfully changed my user profile to an external disk. There are some problems since some programs still use C:\Users\Richard\Appdata. I will discuss this issue in another posting.

Now I would like to move C:\Users\Public to the same external disk, however, the Public folder is not included as a ProfileImagePath as described in this thread. How can I move C:\Users\Public to H:\Users\Public and have it be used by the Windows Media Center? I already created the folders and transferred the files.

Thanks,

Richard Rein

 

[Brink]

Hello Richard,

The Public folder is a shared folder by all users on the computer. It is highly recommended to not move it. Doing so, will break all shares, and may not work in Windows Media Center any more.

Instead of moving your user profiles and Public folder, and possible messing your installation up, you might consider to create new folders on the external drive, then include those new folders in libraries of your choice. You could even set a new folder to be the default save to location of a library. This way everything is saved in the the new folders on the external drive, but your user folders and Public folders are still on C without the risk of messing up their junction piont links.

 

[richierein]

Hi Brink,

My only objective is to have Windows Media Center use the external drive for Recorded TV. How would I go about this or is it even possible?

Richard Rein

 

[Brink]

You should be able to just add the folder to the Windows Media Center library for this. I'm not real familiar with WMC, but this may help with that.

Open Windows Media Center and browse to Tasks > TV > Recorder > Recorder Storage. Click the (+) or (-) sign next to Record on drive to select the external HDD. When selected, click on Save.

If not, then you might create a new thread in the Media Center forum for this. I'm sure that someone that knows more about WMC show be able to help shortly afterwards.

Hope this helps.

 

[richierein]

Thanks Brink. That was easy enough.

Richard

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome.

 

[Eriksoto]

I was able to do "Method 1" up untill Step 15 where you delete the Folder in the original location. When I try to delete it, the message "This action can't be completed because the folder or a file in it is open in another program" pops up. When I click in one of the User Folders and check the properties of the folders there, they all points towards the newly created one. Will I run into any trouble by not deleting the original folder? Is it because this is the default administrator? When I compared pictures on Step 15 method 1, I saw that mine had a lock on the folder while the tutorial's did not.

Option 2 worked fine for me and now any user I make gets automatically put in D, which is the new partition.

 

[richierein]

I originally had the same problem. Some programs continue to use the 'old' folder, most specifically 'C:\Users\Your name\Appdata...' until told not to do so. I had to modify Windows Media Center (see above) and Google Desktop to use my alternate location. Imgburn is still using it on my computer. I sent them an email for more information. You should make these changes to make it easier to backup the files. Backing up the remaining files on both drives (partitions) can be a pain in the ass. I moved my default profile to a different drive (H).

Richard Rein

 

[Komedia]

@Brink, are you a programmer? I've been looking for a software which performs this kind of action via a GUI, like TweakUI does on WinXP. Unfortunately, nothing that I've been researching so far matches my needs. =/

'The Ultimate Windows Tweaker' by The Windows Club is a fine tool, but it doesn't attend the same needs as the old TweakUI users had. And that's one of the features, for example.

If you got time to spare, would it be possible to do such thing at least to the 'User Profile' folders?

Thanks and regards.


(PS: Yay! My 1st post! \o/)

 

[Brink]

Hello Komedia, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Sorry, but I'm not a programmer. I can do some scripting, but nothing on the level that would be required for that.

 

[iwind]

Thank you very much. it all worked except that my computer keeps telling me that it's not possible to delete the old folder in C because it needs System permission. What should I do? I removed the password of the account I've been trying to delete its old User file, logged off then logged on to the account I've created to move that account's User folder but it still wouldn't work!

anybody? little help!
I changed the permissions of that user file to full control by the new account I created. Whenever I try to delete it says to get permission from the same account I'm using (the new one that I only created to change the location of that user file from C to D)
why is it asking for permission from the account I'm using? that doesn't make any sense ​

 

[Brink]

Hello iwind, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Do you have any program that may still be saving to the C: location by default? If so, you would need to change the program's settings to use the new D: location instead.

Do you have any folders or files in the C:\Users\(user-name) location set to be shared by any other users or homegroup? If so, then you would need to set them to be shared by "Nobody" first, then see if you may be able to delete it.

Hope this helps for now,
Shawn

 

[sargan]

Thought this was going to be easy ... did copy form C:\user\name
to E:\user\name

When i try paste I get error:

 

[Brink]

Hello Sargan,

Sorry, but your screenshot was broken. Could upload and attach it again please?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

 

[sargan]

Hello Sargan,

Sorry, but your screenshot was broken. Could upload and attach it again please?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

added it in as a jpeg to original post