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

 

[ferrari353]

I honestly think your best shot is to reinstall. Copying Usrs and Programdata manually and removing the drive where they were originally located has screwed your setup and registry.

Creating links now could cause bigger irreparable problems.

My recommendation is to reinstall. You have messed up, to make things OK again it's the best you could do. It also helps you to avoid related future issues.

If you are not willing to do that, you could try this method to move your user folders (do not move ProgramData and AppData folders with it). However, your screwed settings and registry can cause problems whatever you'll do.

Kari

Okay well I also bought a windows 8 upgrade a few months back but it was only giving me the option of a clean install, presumably because I had my stuff split up. Is there any way to do this on Windows 8?

 

[Kari]

Okay well I also bought a windows 8 upgrade a few months back but it was only giving me the option of a clean install, presumably because I had my stuff split up. Is there any way to do this on Windows 8?

From our sister site Windows 8 Forums: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/4275-user-profiles-relocate-another-partition-disk.html

 

[ferrari353]

Okay well I also bought a windows 8 upgrade a few months back but it was only giving me the option of a clean install, presumably because I had my stuff split up. Is there any way to do this on Windows 8?

From our sister site Windows 8 Forums: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/4275-user-profiles-relocate-another-partition-disk.html

Well its an upgrade, so I would have to install windows 7 first and then it wouldn't be like starting from a clean install of windows 8, so would I use the method that does it to an existing installation?

 

[Gronnie]

Great tutorial, this helped me SO SO SO much!

 

[Kari]

Hi Gronnie, welcome to the Seven Forums. Always nice to get positive feedback .

 

[Gronnie]

So right now I have a 64GB SSD as the System Drive, and a 2TB HDD that I use as a Data Disc and created everything from your tutorial on during install. I now want to upgrade to a bigger SSD. I figured I could just do a System Image of the C: drive using windows backup, but it won't let me just do the C: drive because it says that D: is a system drive as well. I have tons of data on the D: drive so I can't do an image including D: and then install it on the new SSD, it will be too big. What is going to be the best way to move just the C: drive to the new SSD?

 

[derekimo]

Yeah, it see's D drive as a system drive because you moved your profile there. There may be other ways to do what you want but moving your profile back to C should allow you to just image C.

Macrium might be able to just image your C drive, I'd wait and see what some of the others have to say as there might be a simple method I'm not aware of.

 

[Kari]

Gronnie, as Derek told you above your D: drive is now a system drive because you have moved Users (a system folder) to it. Your best should would most probably be to use a third party imaging application.

If you want to use Windows native imaging, you need first to "reverse" relocation i.e. move Users (and ProgramData if you have relocated it, too) back to C:. This can easily be done by running sysprep again using the answer file (script) from the tutorial, this time changing the folder location back to C: (see this post).

Kari

 

[Britton30]

Hi Gronnie. I did use the bootable Macrium Reflect WinPE disk to do what you want to do. I found I had to image BOTH the OS and Data drives, then restore both images with WinPE for it to work. For some reason doing only the OS drive didn't work, it said to insert the OS drive.

WinPE is a bootable version of Macrium.
Free Macrium: Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

WinPE, thoughtfully provided by WHS, otherwise you'll need to download WAIK, about 3GB: https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=475a0a48ca6d4035&id=475A0A48CA6D4035%211812

And his Macrium tutorial: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/73828-imaging-free-macrium.html#post648001

You may find Kari's solution easier.

 

[Kari]

Hi Gronnie. I did use the bootable Macrium Reflect WinPE disk to do what you want to do. I found I had to image BOTH the OS and Data drives, then restore both images with WinPE for it to work. For some reason doing only the OS drive didn't work, it said to insert the OS drive.

Thanks for confirming this. It means that when system folders are located on several drives, all of them need to be included on image. When you think of it it's logical. It's called a system image.

So it looks like the reversed sysprepping, moving Users and ProgramData back before imaging is the only way if you only want to image C:. The question is, would the image be any smaller, for it still contains those two folders.

Kari

 

[Gronnie]

If I move all the folders back to C:, make an image, and then restore to the new drive- how do I move them back to D: again?

 

[Kari]

Running sysprep again as told in this tutorial.

 

[Zotteken]

Hi, I'm a new face here.
I have been reading in the topic for like a week now.
I have followed the instructions given in the tutorial to move my Users & ProgramData folders to my 2TB HDD.
I did so while installing Windows.
Now, I installed Firefox & Spotify with no issues (files going to the HDD, as intended). But I can't get AVG 2013 Free to install. It keeps telling me something about a folder not found (that would be ProgramData, I presume) & a link where it points me out to edit a registry key to be C:\ProgramData.
Now, there appears to be a ProgramData folder on C:\ (which is, according to what I read here, pretty normal) & that key AVG wants me to edit already has the value AVG tells me it has to be.
What else could be wrong. And how can I fix it?

Thanks in advance.
Cheers
Zotteken

 

[Kari]

Hi Zotteken, welcome to the Seven Forums.

First: backup in case something goes wrong!

You could try creating a link between original ProgramData and the new relocated one. Giving this command in an elevated command prompt (elevated = run as administrator) creates it:

mklink /j C:\ProgramData X:\ProgramData

(Replace X with the drive letter where your relocated ProgramData is located.)

Notice that you need to copy absolutely everything from C:\ProgramData to X:\ProgramData and then delete the original C:\ProgramData folder before using above mentioned mklink command.

Now try to install AVG again. If it is still not working, I do not know what else to try. An easy solution would be to replace AVG with Microsoft Security Essentials which in my opinion is at least as good AV solution than AVG.

Kari

 

[Zotteken]

Hi, Kari,

Thanks for the help. I did as you said and now installing my updates to AVG, running smoothly.
Also thanks for the awesome tutorial. I really helped me.

Cheers
Zotteken

 

[Kari]

Good to hear it worked for you!

Kari

 

[jacky]

Kari,
your PDF file is working fine for me .I got one question hope you can answer my questions.
I had Successfully done the for relocate from c:\users to D:\users.( follow the Pdf )
and then I use imagex to capture only C drive. it's become win7.wim in d drive.
then I use the win7.wim image to deploy to another windows 7 computer with c and d drive. I just apply the image in C drive and d drive I manually copy the user profiles from the old computers d:\users\default and D:\users\public

Question :- Can I manually copy the default and public folder from the old computer to newly image computers in D:\users\default and users\public ? I found it's not working ? this is because I had some reason I must image in C drive because I must keep the D drive as the d drive contains a lot of users data so I plan to imaging C drive.

any solution if I not backup the entire drive ? and I only backup on c drive ,if I only backup c drive how the windows to link back the profiles to d:\users\default and d:\users\public ? what are the proper way I can do ? beside backup ? mklink ? robocopy ? xcopy ?

 

[Kari]

Deploying an image needs all system folders and files to be imaged. If you move Users to D:, your system image must include both C: and D:.

Kari

 

[jacky]

Deploying an image needs all system folders and files to be imaged. If you move Users to D:, your system image must include both C: and D:.

Kari

Is there any way that I can ignore D on the image ? as I already imaged the entire C drive only and I already deploy it to C drive in another computer and I use windows PE to boot up and copy back the d:\users\default and d:\users\public from
old computer ( which is created from fresh follow your pdf) to the new computers and the new computer after apply C drive image can work only thing is profiles problem after I manually copy the d:\users\default and d:\users\public

the New Computers contains a lot of important documents and I cant image D , how to solve this? appreciate your help ..

 

[IML8]

Hi, Kari.

I used the method in this tutorial a couple of weeks ago and it worked like a charm. After playing with everything for the last couple of week, it seems to be reasonably bullet proof.

I just have one question that may have already been asked and answered (I haven't read through all 54 pages of comments). Would it be possible to include both the Program Files folder and the Program Files (x86) folder in the XML or would that break something for Windows. I understand that it would slow things down to have the programs on my HDD rather than my SSD, but I'm more concerned with saving space than I am with speed. If it's possible, I may give it a try next time I get ready to do a clean install. If not, I may try the symbolic link method...if you think that would work.

Thanks for all the work you've done on this. I think it's fantastic!

Nick