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

---

• 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

 

[Kari]

...
...
re-ran sysprep, set to audit & quit, and still got the fatal error.
EDIT2: I decided to try to create the system image at this point, as I was pretty much ready to do so anyway. Alas, when I tried to run windows "create a system image" I got the error, "This service cannot be started in Safe Mode (0x8007043C)"

Check the Old Geeks guide again, you'll find this in Part 6:

...
Part 6: Create initial System Image and Backup

We are almost there. Windows is setup, drivers and software installed but it's still virgin: no user data, nothing but a system itself. A perfect time to create a System Image, you can always restore your system to this moment when nothing was messed and everything worked.

Windows Backup does not work in Audit Mode if the Sysprep is set to return to Audit Mode, so first thing to do is to change that.

Click Win + R to open Run dialog, type this and press Enter to open Sysprep dialog:

%windir%\system32\sysprep\sysprep.exe

When Sysprep opens, set System Cleanup Action: Enter System Out-of- Box Experience (OOBE) and Shutdown Options: Quit as shown below:

View attachment 255477

Sysprep prepares the system now for a so called Welcome (OOBE) boot and quits.
...

I think your best shot would be to find time to do this from scratch in one session, not shutting down or letting the PC sleep every now and then.

 

[Kieran28]

...

I think your best shot would be to find time to do this from scratch in one session, not shutting down or letting the PC sleep every now and then.

I agree. I think I'll start from scratch this weekend and try to get it done in one shot. Difficult with 3 kids and a full time job. 9-11pm is usually the only window I get for PC tinkering.

 

[Kari]

Difficult with 3 kids and a full time job. 9-11pm is usually the only window I get for PC tinkering.

You are talking to a divorced man (multiple times, each times happily!), first divorce when I was 23 (30 years ago) when kids were just 2 years and other 6 months old, no more kids, never since lived with kids under the same roof, retired insomniac online 8 to 24 hours a day.

That being said, I don't know what you mean with "difficult to find time"? .

 

[Kieran28]

Difficult with 3 kids and a full time job. 9-11pm is usually the only window I get for PC tinkering.

You are talking to a divorced man (multiple times, each times happily!), first divorce when I was 23 (30 years ago) when kids were just 2 years and other 6 months old, no more kids, never since lived with kids under the same roof, retired insomniac online 8 to 24 hours a day.

That being said, I don't know what you mean with "difficult to find time"? .

LOL, yes, everyone has their struggles. I don't judge.
Thanks again for all your help. Very much appreciated. I'll post back if/when I'm finally successful.

BTW you might consider adding a note to your "old school" tutorial explaining what happens when/if the PC sleeps while in audit mode, and what to do about it, as well as a note cautioning against multiple re-boots.

Kieran

 

[Kari]

BTW you might consider adding a note to your "old school" tutorial explaining what happens when/if the PC sleeps while in audit mode, and what to do about it, as well as a note cautioning against multiple re-boots.

Kieran

Yeah, although not today. I am not capable to do any intellectual work today. I had thought so, I kind of promised yesterday that I will be fully functioning today but that was not the case. Had my birthday last Wednesday, followed by a five day banking holiday weekend, so I was several days enjoying excellent company (Netflix, me, myself and Scotch) sleeping only a few hours.

The older you get, the longer it takes to recover...

Kieran, please keep us posted. I am very interested to hear about your adventures in Windows Wonderland .

 

[Kieran28]

Well, I'm currently running the backup/disk image to a Blu-ray disc. So far so good. I think what probably happened last time, was that I had installed some program that ran a service that sysprep didn't like. As you've said, sysprep doesn't like to share. I'm not sure which one was the culprit, but that's my guess. I was trying to get as many of my standard programs installed before doing the image, but I think I went a bit too far. Two that I can think of that run services are MCEBuddy (awesome, btw, if you use WMC for TV/DVR) and Media Center itself, which I ran and configured for cable TV. There might have been another or two, but I'm betting it was something like that.

So anyway, I now am (or will be soon) at the point where I've got an image of the system, but have not yet set up any user profiles or moved the user directory. I have not yet connected the HDD. So far the system only knows the SSD. My plan is, once the imaging is complete, to run sysprep again and then shutdown. Connect the HDD, then boot to audit mode. I'll do a final check that there aren't any system folders on the HDD (any sure fire ways to do that?) and then follow your instructions to move the users folder to the HDD, then finish the install & setup per your old school tutorial, and finish setting up the rest of my software.
Does this sound good? Any other tips or precautions?
Thanks,
Kieran

 

[Kari]

I might be late with this:

If you do the image after sysprep command has been run with /quit switch, still in Audit Mode, simply shutdown the PC from Start Menu (no sysprep).

Now connect the HDD and boot. Windows returns to Audit Mode automatically. Any sysprep run AFTER the image and BEFORE the HDD is connected is in your case totally useless. Less is sometimes more .

 

[Kieran28]

I might be late with this:

If you do the image after sysprep command has been run with /quit switch, still in Audit Mode, simply shutdown the PC from Start Menu (no sysprep).

Now connect the HDD and boot. Windows returns to Audit Mode automatically.

How is this possible? If I last ran sysprep (GUI) with the OOBE and quit options (which I did in order to create the image), then when I shut down, wouldn't it boot to OOBE?

Any sysprep run AFTER the image and BEFORE the HDD is connected is in your case totally useless.

Why useless? I guess I'm not clear on the real purpose behind using sysprep. I thought it was to place the system into audit mode, in order to install software before setting up users, or to take the system out of audit mode (e.g. to run backup/image).
Related question: say I booted to OOBE, then changed my mind and wanted to do some more work in audit mode. Couldn't I just ctrl-shift-f3 to reboot into audit mode? Does that actually place the system into audit mode, or does it just reboot and you have to run sysprep to get into audit mode. My guess is that ctrl-shift-f3 reboots to audit mode, and sysprep gui is just used to tell the system to enter audit mode again upon reboot.

Thanks for any clarification. I'm mostly just curious about these things.

Anyway, FYI, what I did was after the image finished, I ran sysprep gui and set it to audit/quit and then shutdown and went to bed. I figured with the image successfully created I could always re-start there, if the next boot proved problematic.

Less is sometimes more .

I couldn't agree more with that!

 

[Kari]

Sorry, my mistake, I totally forgot that in order to be able to create the image you had to sysprep with /oobe. Unforgivable mistake, I am sorry .

You are of course totally right.

 

[Kieran28]

No worries, Kari. At least all your previous information was consistent enough that I knew better when you did mis-type!

So here's the current problem:
I am currently going through my HDD, and there are indeed a couple of folders left from the previous system, including... Programdata! (duh). Also there is a user folder left. I cannot delete either of these, because they are both demanding administrator privileges from the previous system (which now no longer exists.)
Is there a way around this?
Thanks...
Kieran

 

[Kari]

Is machine already sysprepped and the drive contains these left over folders, along with new system folders? If yes, take ownership of the folders and delete them. Tutorial, Option Three is for you: Take Ownership of file

Not yet sysprepped machine, folders not yet relocated? Format the disk.

 

[Kieran28]

Hi Kari,
I'm not sure I understand the two scenarios you've described, so I'll describe the state I am in:
I followed your "old school" tutorial through step 6, except that I skipped creating any users yet. I burned a backup image of the system with no users created. Only the main system drive (SSD) was connected. I then ran sysprep again in order to be able to reboot to audit mode. I shut down, connected my 1TB HDD, and rebooted. As a reminder, this HDD contained the Programdata and Users system folders from my previous installation. I thought I had deleted them, but was unable to delete the main admin folder (named Kieran), and the programdata folder. I must have somehow moved the Kieran user folder as it is now in the root of that hdd (so currently e:\kieran) and it is empty except for a "google drive" subfolder which I cannot open, nor delete. Also the hidden system folder programdata exists at the root of the HDD, e:\programdata which is also empty except for a folder named Microsoft, which contains several folders I can't delete.
System is currently booted in audit mode. I am ready to run your "relocate" script, but want to remove these remnants of the previous system, and can't.
I tried the "To Manually Take Ownership of a Item" part of Brink's tutorial to which you linked, and assigned ownership to [currentmachine]\Administrator but now when I try to delete it, the system says I need permission from that Administrator user to make changes.
Thanks for any further suggestions...
Kieran

 

[Kari]

Sorry, I slept a few hours and had an appointment with my doctor first thing in the morning, seeing your post first now.

It is the latter of my two scenarios (previous post of mine) then. Format the HDD before continuing. Then sysprep with answer file relocating the Users (and ProgramData if you mve that, too) and reboot. All should be done now.

 

[BobCochran]

Question About How To Restore User Profiles

Hi Kari,

About 3-4 years ago I built a Windows 7 computer, and at that time I followed a method I found on the Internet for having all the user profiles kept on a separate hard drive. It was like your method, except I also had to create junction points. So all my user profiles lived on a different drive e:\Users. The ProgramData lived on e:\ProgramData, too. The Windows drive was C:\.

Everything worked very well until a few days ago.

Then what happened is, my drive C: crashed and was no longer usable or readable.

So I purchased a new SSD, and reinstalled Windows according to this thread. I had thought that I could just set my answer file to point to the user data that is on e:\Users, and the installation would "reconnect" to those user profiles and not try to establish a c:\Users folder. However, the installation failed.

After some research, it seems to me that I missed a crucial step: I probably should have exported my user profile information using Windows Easy Transfer to something like an external hard drive prior to my system drive crashing. Is that correct? Put another way, was there user profile data which is not kept within the user profile directory (e:\Users) that would be needed to successfully re-connect a fresh, new Windows installation on a new hard drive with the user data that is on the separate hard drive?

Thanks a lot for any advice you can offer.

Bob Cochran
Greenbelt, Maryland, USA

 

[Kari]

So I purchased a new SSD, and reinstalled Windows according to this thread. I had thought that I could just set my answer file to point to the user data that is on e:\Users, and the installation would "reconnect" to those user profiles and not try to establish a c:\Users folder. However, the installation failed.

Hi Bob, welcome to the Seven Forums.

We had a similar issue only a few weeks ago, let me start with quoting a few posts from that conversation. Read the below quotes:

Hi Kari,
A few years ago when I built my system I followed your tutorial to move the default location of user folders to my 1TB D: HDD, and installed Win7 on the 128GB SSD. Due to an unresolvable infinite repair loop problem, I'm now planning to just do a clean re-install of the OS on the SSD.
Is it possible to do a clean re-install on to the SSD, and have the new installation recognize the existing user folders on the D-drive (HDD)?
Thanks in advance,
Kieran

No Kieran, I am afraid it is not possible. Windows always starts after a clean install with empty user profile folders (read: no personal content).

The drive where you have the Users folder now located should not contain a folder named Users when you sysprep. It should also not be renamed to something else but totally removed. This is the short checklist to do what you want to do correctly:

• Backup your personal content from all user profiles to an external drive
  • Do not include the AppData folders in this backup! Using old appdata on new installation is a sure way to get a screwed up Windows. Only copy and backup the docs, pics, music, videos, saved games and such
• Shutdown the PC
• Disconnect the HDD, only leaving the SSD connected
• Boot with Windows 7 install media, perform a clean install
• When installation is done and you get to first dialog asking you to create the initial first user account, enter Audit Mode with CTRL+SHIFT+F3
• When in Audit Mode, close the Sysprep GUI by clicking Cancel and shutdown the PC
• Connect the HDD
• Boot the PC, it boots automatically back to Audit Mode
• Wipe the HDD clean, create a partition for the Users folder
• Run the Sysprep relocating the Users folder
• When ready and you are on the Windows desktop with your usual user account, restore the backed up personal content

Kari

Thanks very much for the prompt reply.
Is it absolutely necessary to wipe the HDD clean?

No, it's not necessary. What is important is that it does not contain any Windows system folders or files from any old installation, not even renamed.

If the only system folder the HDD contains is Users, backup the personal content and remove the folder. Also if you had used this method to relocate the ProgramData folder, remove it, too.

All other content can stay on the HDD. Notice that backing up the content of the Users folder to another folder on the same drive is a no go, too. The user files will in that case remain flagges belonging to an older Windows insallation.

That's about it, is sums your situation, too. In your case the process would be exactly what I recommended to Kieran above. The first list item means you should copy all user data, personal files from all existing user profile folders on the HDD to an external storage.

Any questions, please post here.

Kari

 

[BobCochran]

Hi Kari,

Thank you very much. So what I would do is: after running the sysprep which relocates the user folders, I would, as an example:

• Create a user named Bob
• Log in as Bob
• Then copy all of the data files and folders for the user named Bob from the backup (external) had drive to the new home directory for Bob -- which is on the separate hard drive I've designated for the system's Users folder. I would not copy the old AppData folder at all. I would copy the contents of the old Documents folder for Bob to the new Documents folder for Bob (Since Windows 7 put it there for me on the new system.)

Is a good example of what you mean?

Thanks again. I think I understand thoroughly what you are saying, it seems quite clear to me. I really appreciate your response very much because you gave me sufficient detail that I feel confident in the next steps. And since I have good backups of the user data, I am okay about making mistakes.

So many thanks

Bob

 

[Kari]

Yes, your example is correct, that's exactly the way to do it. You would copy from the external backup storage, from each user profile folder (Users\Bob, Users\Wife, Users\Son and so on) everything to corresponding folder in the new main profile folder Users, but you would not copy anything stored in AppData. The AppData is hidden by default for a reason, old AppData and ProgramData on a new installation is a sure way to disaster.

OldUsers\Bob\Documents to NewUsers\Bob\Documents, OldUsers\Public\Downloads to NewUsers\Public\Downloads, OldUsers\Wife\Music to NewUsers\Wife\Music and so on.

 

[BobCochran]

Thank you very much!

Hi Kari,

Thank you very much for your excellent advice. I have reinstalled Windows 7 properly so that the user data is now on a separate drive. That part is working fine now. I created the users that I need to, and logged into the accounts of each of these people, and then logged out of them. Now I'm letting Windows 7 update itself after validating it.

In a few hours I will start copying user data from the backup disk that I created. One quick mention of the AppData folder. One of my users finds Microsoft Outlook to be an important part of her life, and I think Outlook keeps its *.pst and *.pab files inside the user's AppData folder, so I will dig them out of the old AppData folder and copy those files over -- just the Outlook data files.

Again, many, many thanks for your help. Your excellent directions really give me confidence and clarify the steps I need to take.

Thanks

Bob

 

[Kari]

Regarding the Outlook, I would rather create the needed email accounts first in Outlook, then import the old PST files to those accounts. Matter of how you are used to do it, I guess .

Good to hear it's working for you!

 

[BobCochran]

Hi Kari,

The method you suggest works extremely well. I've installed various bits of software like the latest Java JRE and moved all the data for 2 users on that machine to their respective home directories and logins and data access seem to work fine.

Thanks again for the excellent, professional advice.

Bob