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.
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.
- 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
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
- 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
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thank you so much for your help. I think the problem the first time was that I didn't change the drive letter that programdata and users go on (my secondary drive isn't D:. So that might be worth mentioning in the guide.
both Users and ProgramData folders back to original locations on C: simply by editing the script between FolderLocations tags, changing ProfilesDirectory and ProgramData values back to original locations, booting to Audit Mode and running the script:
