User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation

How to Create User Accounts on another Partition or Disk During Windows 7 Installation ​

   Information

There are several methods to move user profiles to another disk or partition after you have installed Windows 7. The easiest way is to use Audit Mode and System Preparation Tool, both built-in Windows 7 features, to permanently move the location of the folder Users.

This tutorial shows how to relocate both Users and ProgramData to another disk or partition when doing a new, fresh and clean install of Windows 7. If you have already installed Seven, and you'd like to move those folders away from their default location in C: drive, please read first post number 22 in this thread. Follow the steps told in that post, and continue then from beginning of the page 4 in this tutorial.

When Windows 7 is installed, 5 or 6 system folders are created depending on chosen bit-version:

• PerfLogs (Performance Logs), where Windows stores performance and reliability logs
• Program Files, where applications and software are installed. Windows x86 (32-bit) stores all applications here, Windows x64 (64-bit) only native 64-bit applications
• Program Files (x86), only in Windows x64. All non-x64 applications are stored here
• Windows, which contains core operating system files and drivers
• ProgramData, where some applications store application and user specific settings and configuration files
• Users. This is the "home" of all user folders. When a new user account is created and this new user logs in first time, Windows creates a set of user specific folders Users\New_User

Moving Windows and Program Files folders is not recommend by Microsoft. However, moving both Users and ProgramData folders is safe and can save a lot of space on system disk. Pictures, mp3’s videos, documents and so on, a user folder with its subfolders can be tens, sometimes hundreds of gigabytes.

For instance, using this laptop of mine as an example, the total size of Users folder and subfolders is at the moment about 240 GB. The size of ProgramData folder is at the moment almost 18 GB. I simply could not have these folders stored in my system C: drive, there’s not enough space.

When installing Windows 7, I recommend using Windows System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) in so called Audit Mode to relocate Users and ProgramData, leaving C: drive only for Windows and applications.

   Warning

An upgraded Windows cannot be sysprepped. As this method is based in sysprepping, this tutorial is valid only for Windows setups which have not been upgraded.

This means that if you have for instance in-place upgraded Vista to Seven, you cannot sysprep. The same applies if you have upgraded from a lesser edition to a better edition, for instance from Windows 7 Home Premium to Professional.

Notice that a repair install is also an upgrade install, so if you have ever done a repair install (= in-place upgrade to same edition), you cannot sysprep.

In other words, when sysprepping an existing Windows setup it only works if the Windows was installed clean and has never been upgraded or repaired using repair install, or if it is the original pre-installed Windows.

Using this method causes Windows 7 to lose activation information, and it needs to be reactivated afterwards. If your Windows 7 is an OEM version, you might not be able to reactivate it, at least not without phone activation option.

   Warning

IE10 Users: Please read this article first: Sysprep Fatal Error With IE 10 (FIX) | System Administration

Complete tutorial as PDF: View attachment Relocate User folders during Windows 7 installation.pdf (1.22 MB)

Kari

Related Tutorials

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• How to Change the Default Location of a User Profile in Windows 7 and Vista
• How to Change the Default Location of Windows 7 User Folders
• How to Restore the Default Location of Windows 7 User Folders
• 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

 

[Britton30]

Follow Kari's post #838. The tutorial tells to change the drive letters in the answer file to match what you have. Yes, by all means have just the drive installed you're putting w7 on until you're ready to move the folders, then shut down, attach the drive, and pick up where you stopped.

 

[Kari]

Currently I just had to robocall to reactivate my windows, but currently I'm dealing with an error from sysprep that reads "A fatal error occurred while trying to sysprep the machine." I had previously tried the fresh install following the entirety of the tutorial but I think the drive locations in the script were not what I wanted (they used D: and my drive was F: but it wasn't specified if that was the drive you wanted the folders on) and it just did nothing so I reinstalled hoping to just undo that all. After installing with HDD removed, rebooted with it plugged in and did the %windir% via cmd but now its giving me this error. Ugh. Halp thanks.

edit: best ideas I have is to reinstall again, without HDD, and before naming the computer, follow the tutorial from there, or, um. well, that's all I can think of I guess. I'll wait for replies

Follow Kari's post #838. The tutorial tells to change the drive letters in the answer file to match what you have. Yes, by all means have just the drive installed you're putting w7 on until you're ready to move the folders, then shut down, attach the drive, and pick up where you stopped.

Levy, I posted exact instructions especially for you, see my previous post (it's #837,Britton ).

About the fact that you used wrong (D:) drive exactly as in tutorial, I can only say that sometimes it makes things with Windows easier if you use your own brain, too. This tutorial was published over three and half years and 350,000 visits ago, everyone else has understood to change the drive letter accordingly.

 

[Levy23]

Jeez, sorry if I misunderstood. I'll try it again if I can get sysprep to work again. Figured I would rely on what was said instead of following my own idea since I didn't know what I was doing. This all is a bit of a mess and I was trying to follow instructions, no need to insult. Last thing I want to do right now is mess up my computer, especially when the Key continues to come back unusable and the guide said if you were running W7 64 Ultimate, etc that it didnt need to be altered. So i was 'oh ok'. You started off not knowing just like I am, don't be so hasty to basically call someone an idiot when its just a misunderstanding. Thank you.

 

[Britton30]

Levy23 no one is calling you an idiot, just asking for you to read our posts.
Don't feel bad mate my first attempt at doing this was less than successful. Kari made some strong suggestions to me as well, in the end it was my fault for missing some tiny, but important details. Heck, he even had to write my answer file because I could not get it right concerning what lines were to be combined.

I did find it very helpful to print out the PDF and have made several notes on it for many steps. Although I've done the process a few times now I always check it much like a pilot has a check list before each take of and landing.

There is a lot of info to digest, I admit, but it is all in a logical and concise form, so even I, a caveman, can do it.

 

[Levy23]

Thank you, Britton. I'm currently trying to reinstall the OS. I'm still getting Sysprep errors. That's all for now, thank you again.

 

[Britton30]

Let us know the errors. Be sure to disable the WMP network sharing as told, it messed me up. Check all of your connections too.

 

[Levy23]

Everything seems to have worked! Just robocalling for an activation (aaaand done!). Users and Prgm Data files are listed on the new drive (there's a Data's file still on the C: drive but I noticed that was typical and only some programs might install there), so I think I'm all set! Thank you again! Hopefully this'll cut down on the room taken up <3

Levy

 

[Britton30]

Good news to hear. I still install programs to my SSD for speed but the Data goes to the HDD, all works well.
The default install location will be C:\ but most software will give an option of where to install.

 

[Arqfaim]

What about relocating and renaming?

Hi!
I have semi-succeded relocating the \Users and \ProgramData from C: to E: although not exactly by your method. I did it via unattend.xml script during a fresh install:

...
           <FolderLocations>
                        <ProfilesDirectory>E:\Users V7</ProfilesDirectory>
                        <ProgramData>E:\ProgData V7</ProgramData>
            </FolderLocations>
...

this resulted in an E:\ProgData V7 as intended but the new user profiles folder was created as E:\Users.
Also tried reinstalling (also to a VMware vm):

...
                        <ProfilesDirectory>E:\Profiles Folder</ProfilesDirectory>
...

This to check if it would get truncated to E:\Profiles but it still came out as E:\Users.

Is it not possible to rename the \Users folder?
Is renaming \ProgramData and \Users a "bad idea"?
Is it an "only 8 letters" name restriction?

Thanks in advance for your reply and expertise

 

[Britton30]

I think it is a bad idea since the system looks for those specific files names. If it doesn't find them it could create them on C:\, negating the process.

 

[Kari]

I think it is a bad idea since the system looks for those specific files names. If it doesn't find them it could create them on C:\, negating the process.

I totally agree. It is always a bad idea to rename Windows system folders.

 

[Arqfaim]

So if I keep 2 parallel installs, say Win7 and Win8, there's no accepted way for 2 \Users and \ProgramData folders to share the same partition?

If that be the case it's redundant to point the redirect to D:\Users or E:\Users or X:\Users . D: E: or X: is enough.

P.S. Can I redirect to a subdirectory or do they have to be on root?

 

[Kari]

So if I keep 2 parallel installs, say Win7 and Win8, there's no accepted way for 2 \Users and \ProgramData folders to share the same partition?

If that be the case it's redundant to point the redirect to D:\Users or E:\Users or X:\Users . D: E: or X: is enough.

To put it simple: it is not recommend to rename any of the system folders. Also, to secure that the system works as it should, all main system folders should be on root level. Hence, you cannot relocate system folders from different installations to the same partition.

P.S. Can I redirect to a subdirectory or do they have to be on root?

See my comment above.

Kari

 

[Arqfaim]

So it turns out that neither of us was right but neither was totally wrong either
FYI:
In my "experiment" Windows 7 did create a profiles folder called "E:\Profiles Folder". That is what it lists in a command line dir. That's also what it's called looking at E: from outside Windows.
But in an Explorer window it doesn't display as "\Profiles Folder", it shows as "\Users" !!

What type of link is this being displayed?
How can I make Explorer show the true name while retaining functionality?
Can the same mechanism be used to soft-rename some other folder (inside Explorer)?

Perhaps this falls out of topic. Just trying to learn, not a specific problem to solve.
Thanks

 

[Kari]

I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about? How was I wrong, what did you do?

 

[Arqfaim]

I have succeded relocating the \Users and \ProgramData from C: to E: via unattend.xml script during a fresh install:

...<FolderLocations>
<ProfilesDirectory>E:\Profiles Folder</ProfilesDirectory>
<ProgramData>E:\ProgData Folder</ProgramData>
</FolderLocations> ...

this resulted in an E:\ProgData Folder and a E:\Profiles Folder that displays the name E:\Users inside Windows Explorer (see previous post).

I'm sorry, I take back that you were wrong. You never said it wasn't possible you just said it was a bad idea.

About my questions, how does E:\Profiles Folder get translated to E:\Users inside Windows Explorer?
It's not listed as a junction point or symbolic link!?

 

[Kari]

It is your computer, your Windows and your way to do things. I can only suggest and recommend something, based on what I know and my own experience. If you choose not to follow instructions and recommendations given to you, it's totally your own known decision.

Only explanation I can think of for Windows using symlinks for your strangely named Users system folder is that as the renaming really is a bad idea and might cause big problems in the future, Windows kind of protects itself a bit creating the Users as and where it should be.

By the way, one sure way to screw your system is what you did for ProgramData folder, renaming it.

You chose not to follow instructions given to you. I choose not to assist you in any way when these dumb decisions will later cause issues for you.

 

[Britton30]

I hope it will continue to work for you and you have made good back ups for the system. Most w7 or any Windows OS created system folder have special properties built-in which can't be recreated by making a new folder with the same name.

 

[Kari]

I hope it will continue to work for you and you have made good back ups for the system. Most w7 or any Windows OS created system folder have special properties built-in which can't be recreated by making a new folder with the same name.

Exactly.

Using sysprep and an unattended answer file to relocate Users and ProgramData changes the values of two Windows Environmental Variables. Let's use the ProgramData folder as an example:

You can open the ProgramData folder in File Explorer using its variable name. Type %programdata% in address field followed by Enter and the ProgramData is opened, even when it's hidden as it by default is. This folder is kind of AppData folder for all users, various programs saving application specific information shared by all users as in opposite for AppData which stores the same information when it's user specific.

A well coded application does not look this folder by its de facto name or location (C:\ProgramData) but uses instead its variable name %programdata%. In an ideal situation this allows the ProgramData folder to have whatever name because the variable tells for the application in question where the folder is and what its name is.

However not all apps are coded following these correct guidelines. Some programs have the location hard coded using the default name and location. Because of this I have always recommended leaving the original ProgramData in C: there as it never grows to be too big and really is sometimes needed. See this post for an example.

I would not want to add or change anything which could cause even more confusion. I can only see possible issues but no gain in Windows having these two ProgramData folders with different names, the original in C:\ProgramData and the other, relocated and actual one in X:\MyFancyNamedProgramData.

Kari

 

[Arqfaim]

Guys, thanks. I acknowledge I've been warned and that going out of the box will most likely cause problems.
Fact is that I'm testing this in a virtual machine, I'm not trusting my data to this system and I have up-to-date disc images and data backup. Meanwhile I can learn from the experiment:

I have now a dual-boot install of Win8 and Win7 each on its own partition and the Users and Programdata of the 2 versions on subdirectories of partition 3 (e:\). I didn't try it but I imagine if I try to put the pairs on the root of E: then only one Users junction point would be possible creating a conflict to where it should point, being that, if I understand correctly, junction points are implemented pre-OS, at NTFS level.

I haven't installed many programs yet but I'm curious to which will mis-behave. Definitely will try-out Skype so I'll post here if still takes C:\ProgramData for granted.

Following Kari's Wikipedia lead I've tried to find the symlink \Users->\Profiles Folder.
dir /AL /S e:\ doesn't list it. Neither does Nirsoft's NTFSLinksView.
The other type of symlink possible would be ShellObject definition at the registry but I didn't find it. So I thought that maybe Windows Explorer is hard-coded to find out where %USERPROFILE% is and assume it is called \Users\... But this appears not to be true either because Win7 Explorer also sees the renamed profiles folder of Win8 and also lists its name as Users instead of Usersv8, the name I gave it.

I guess these folders are flagged as special outside the respective OSs, maybe so that they can be kept protected from other OS normal file operations. But... only Windows explorer displays this name. XY Explorer for exeample lists their true names. The mistery goes on. I guess I like debugging