User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation

Yeah, I didn't think that script would have affected it, but the timing was odd. The only disk I marked as Active was the SSD. I read things about marking a disk as inactive, but I didn't see any way to do that in Disk Management.

But your screenshot here clearly shows both SSD and SATA partitions (disks) as active.

Here's what you should do if you for any reason want to move ProgramData and / or Users after Windows is already installed. This method can be used whenever you want to relocate Users to another disk on an existing installation of Seven.

If you want to install Seven on an SSD: Install Seven normally to SSD, disconnecting all other disks. After Windows has booted first time normally after installation, shut the computer down and reconnect other disks. Reboot Windows.

Relocating Users and ProgramData folders when Windows Seven is already installed:

Run Command Prompt as administrator by clicking Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories, then right clicking Command Prompt and selecting Run as Administrator:



Type this to command prompt: C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe /audit /reboot, hit Enter.



Windows reboots now to Audit Mode, "thinking" it's been started first time as the message on screen shows:



Now continue from beginning of page 4 in tutorial, and follow the steps described. Running the script causes Windows to move ProgramData and Users folders from C: to another disk or partition, also moving all content of said folders. The later you do this, the longer it takes because Windows has more to move.

Notice that this really makes Windows think it's first boot, so you have to select country and keyboard layout and again create a user account when first time booted in OOBE (normal) mode after running the script. Because the Users folder already contains your user account folders, you get an error message if trying to input the same name:



Use a temporary name, for instance Test to continue first boot routine. When Windows stops for login, choose your old account to login, for instance in my case I chose here Kari and not the account Test which I just created:



When finally in Windows desktop, go to User Accounts and remove the unnecessary Test account. That account has yet no folders to remove because Windows does not create user folders when user account is created; the user folders are only created when user logs in first time.

That's it. Works without any problems whatsoever.

Kari

This new method worked great, thanks.

Before I did this I had renamed my old Users folder Users.old. When I did this, it created a new Users folder which included my old user profile folders and there was no longer a Users.old. Even though my old user folder is under Users, my account isn't listed under User Accounts. If I create a new user account with the same name already in the Users folder, will it just link to that folder with all of my old data?

I think you need to be creative here. After doing this last time, I had an old user folder Kari, and the new one with name Kari.Laptop2 (Windows added the name of the computer to username).

I solved this by logging in as Admin, deleting the new Kari-folders (Kari.Laptop2), renaming Kari (the old user folder) to Kari.old, creating a new user Kari, and then logging in to this now new user account Kari. It then created the default user folders for me. Now I took ownership of Kari.old, and copied its content over to (new) Kari folder.

Then it was just to delete Kari.Old.

Alright, good. That's exactly how I ended up doing it. I thought there might have been a more direct way to do so, but that gets the job done.

I am going to do some serious testing in a next few days. I think moving existing accounts (profiles), you need to first copy the folders of that account to an external drive, then delete the profile, move users using the script told in this tutorial, and then copy the files and folders back.

It seems sysprep is too "clever"; it does not let it to be fooled with renamed user folders but "hijacks" those, causing double user profile name, with the ".ComputerName" extension on the new profile.

Kari

I've run into another problem. I noticed that even though I had renamed the user account name and the user account folder, that the system still viewed it with the original name the account was created as. In my case- Test.

I noticed this after entering netplwiz when following this tutorial- http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/377-log-automatically-startup.html

The User Name displayed there was the temporary one I had created. So I went into properties there and updated the User name to the same as the Full name which displayed correctly.

Now I'm not able to access the normal user profiles when logging in under a user account. It creates a temporary account for each log in. Under the admin account I looked at the user folder and it showed SYSTEM as the owner. So I made the user account as the owner, but still no luck.

If I go into User Accounts the new user profile I created is there. If I go into Control Panel> User Accounts> Configure advanced user profile properties, there are only two profiles displayed- Admin and default. So any idea how to create the user profile or to re-associate the user folder with the user account?

I think I got it. I used this for guidance- http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/87555-user-profile-change-default-location.html?ltr=U

The profile folders were already where I wanted them, but I figured it wasn't where Windows was looking for them. So looking in regedit I saw that it was still looking for a folder under the temporary account I created- Test. So I changed regedit to reflect the current user and folder names and now when I log into a user account it opens the proper user profile!

The profiles are also now listed correctly under user profile properties as well.

I found that I still have a ProgramData folder on my C drive. It only contains a Windows folder, so I'm guessing it was created before I ran your script after the first login. Is there any harm moving it to the ProgramData folder on my D drive and deleting it from C? Would I have to make some regedit changes to update paths?

I have kept those ProgramData folders in C: on every computer. Some badly coded applications don't check variable %ProgramData% to see where information should be stored. In my case, this laptop I'm using now which got a fresh install early October, two applications have stored information on this original ProgramData folder: Skype to its own C:\ProgramData\Skype subfolder, and virtual disk application Gizmo under C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Gizmo subfolder.

That Skype surprised me a bit. I had thought Skype would really be coded using variables instead of absolute file locations, but as it seems to be, I was wrong. I remember seeing same kind of bad programming back in XP's time quite often; my last XP was a Finnish one, Program Files folder was named in Finnish Ohjelmatiedostot. Because some coders did not use variables to determine default install locations, using absolute file locations instead and of course assuming I'm using an English XP if installing English application, or German XP if installing German application, I ended up having three Program Files folders: original Finnish Ohjelmatiedostot, English Program Files and German Programmdateien.

Just hide the folder and let it be there. It does no harm and never grows to be disturbing big. Total size of the "original" ProgramData folder in this laptop's C: drive ATM is 615 KB in 9 files, compared to my "new" and actual ProgramData folder in D:, which has ATM 10.5 GB in 45,899 files. I simply see no harm to let it be there.

Kari

My C:\ProgramData is 44MB with just the Windows folder in it. But D:\ProgramData is over 1GB and I've confirmed new program data is going to it. I'll live with it! Thanks.

Im triyng it now and i keep getting this: Unable to deserialize explicitly provided unattend file.

Full error:

2011-01-04 16:35:33, Error [sysprep.exe] UnattendFindAnswerFile: Unable to deserialize explicitly provided unattend file [C:\relocate.xml]; status = 0x80073714, hrResult = 0x0.
2011-01-04 16:35:33, Error [0x0f009e] SYSPRP SysprepSearchForUnattend: Failed while searching for unattend file; hr = 0x80073714
2011-01-04 16:35:33, Error [0x0f00a5] SYSPRP WinMain:Encountered error while searching for unattend file; hr = 0x80073714.

any help with what the above means?

also now as i cant read pdf's could someone please copy n paste the xml code for me?

Deltawar said:

...

also now as i cant read pdf's could someone please copy n paste the xml code for me?

Click to expand...

ok, here you go:

Please notice: rows 4 to 7 in script above is only one row, wrapped here to 4 rows because of the
limited width of the page. Same with rows 14 and 15. When typed in Notepad, the script should have 12 rows) Change these three things written in red, if needed:

- Row 4: If you are installing Windows x64 (64-bit), value prosessorArchitecture should be amd64

- Row 4: If you are installing Windows x86 (32-bit), value prosessorArchitecture should be x86

- Row 14: Change the drive letter in wim:E to that of your CD/DVD drive where your Windows 7 installation DVD currently is

- Row 14: Change the Windows edition at the end of the line to that you are currently installing
(HOMEBASIC, HOMEPREMIUM, PROFESSIONAL, ULTIMATE, ENTERPRISE)

(If you are installing Windows Ultimate x64 from CD/DVD drive E: and relocating folders to D: you don’t have to change anything, you can use the script as it is.)

Choose Save As from Notepad’s File menu. Choose Save as type All Files. Name it as you want, add .xml extension to the filename. Save the script to the root of any drive...

...

Click to expand...

sorry i can't help you on the first bit of your question, but it looks like it can't find your relocate file on c:

can you save it on another safe partition? if you're installing from a usb stick, that would be a good place to have relocate.xml.

you may have to modify the xml script a bit, especially the d: and e: drive letters.

i'm sure Kari will be along soon...

First the xml code for unattend file is here:
Change the ProcessorArchitecture value (line 4, in the middle) to "x86" if you have a 32-bit Windows 7. Leave it to "amd64" if you have a 64-bit Windows 7.

Change the ProfilesDirectory and ProgramData values to to show desired locations of Users and ProgramData folders.

Change the drive letter to that of your DVD drive where Seven installation disk is located in second last line, after "wim:" (in the middle of the line) and following that, the correct Windows edition (HOMEBASIC, HOMEPREMIUM, PROFESSIONAL, ULTIMATE or ENTERPRISE).

The error codes you provided show sysprep is looking the script from C:. Move it to some other drive, for instance D:. Check that the file name and extension are correct; it won't work if you save it as Notepad's default .txt file. It must be .xml.

Then simply run sysprep. This example assumes the script's name is Relocate.xmlm and that it is saved on the root of D:-drive:

By the way, in audit mode before running the script, you can install programs if you need / want to. For instance, just go to Internet in Audit Mode to download and install a PDF-reader.

Kari



EDIT: Mickey was faster...

i wasnt too sure on installing adobe reader in audit mode, but thanks for the xml sheet, i am/was running 64 bit ultimate so didnt need to change anything, i swapped out my hand written code for the one above and it worked fine.


Must have been a spelling mistake somewhere.

Thanks again.

That's good to hear! Thanks for coming back to tell this.

Kari

Kari - This install procedure is fantastic & a time saver if ever a reinstall is required. Your instructions are excellent.

I have partitioned my drive into C:\OS & D:\Data. Unfortunately after following this install procedure W7's native imaging program no longer allows choosing C:\ only. It automatically includes both C: & D: together. It's more of an inconvenience though as I also use Macrium Reflect (Thank you WHS). Have you found a way to allow imaging of C: only via W7's imaging program?

I know some here do not like W7's imaging imaging although I've used it for over a year without hiccup. I'd like to have this option if it can be made available.

Thanks!

Windows native imaging always includes Users and ProgramData in a system image, so no, I do not know how not to include D: or whatever drive where your user profiles are saved.

Using third party imaging, as you told you do, is as far as I know the only option.

Kari

I thought as much but it doesn't hurts to inquire of greater minds. Thanks again!