User Profiles - Create and Move During Windows 7 Installation

Britton 30, thanks for the link. I will try and figure out how to use that ISO.

Here is what my Cd says:

" i series. Reinstallation DVD. The software included on this Recovery DVD-ROM was pre-installed on your hard drive at the factory and may only be used for backup and recovery of your computer system. Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit"


Here is my plan.... I think I will try again by using my Re-Installation DVD to install windows 7 in a clean install again. However, this time, when i Shutdown the computer from Audit mode (and after I re-attach my HDD) I will load the ISO of windows 7 and tell the script to look for it there (on the ISO)... that way, all of my correct system drivers gets installed, and when time to run the Sysprep and make it run the script, it will look to the ISO for the file instead of my DVD i've tried with before. What do you think?

VICTORY!!!!!!!! Kari, Britton30, thank you guys for all of your help. Many clean installs later and i've finally done it!

Britton30, I followed the link to the ISO you posted and DL'ed my Win7 version. I put it on a bootable formatted DVD and ran the clean install/sysprep, etc, using that disc as opposed to the OEM recovery dvd i had been using. This time, when I rebooted for the first time in regular mode, sure enough, my folders had moved. I deleted the ProgramData folder on C: and used a shell extension program to create Junctions between the folders on C: and D:. Everything worked out well.

I do have one last question though: When I place a file in either folder location, I can see it in both. Does that mean that the file is being stored on both drives? Or is it that, due to the junction, I can view the files from the C: drive, but that they are actually on the D: drive now?

Thanks again guys.

Well, I may have spoke too soon. Everything was going fine, but as I was installing drivers for things such as my GPU, weird things started happening on my desktop. The pc would freeze, etc. I looked in my Devices and Printers section, and the PC icon has a yellow exclamation sign on it. When I look, it says each item in there is missing drivers.

When I try to tell the devices to update drivers, it says drivers cannot be found.

The actual devices that are showing no drivers is:

3D Video Controller
42 different "Base System Device"
Ethernet Controller
Network Controller
PCI Simple communications controllers
4 performance counters
SM Bus Controller
System Interrupt Controller
2 Universal Serial Bus Controller's

hey kari nice to meet you ok i see about moving user directories and program data ok is the program data both the programs and programs86 folders im not to windows or pc literate and i was looking to have my users programs programs86 put to a partition on the hard drive i installed fresh win copy in so i was trying to seperate them files off incase if windows takes a dump i still have all my files and just have to reset up windows again then and if not how would i write to script for the directories under programs and programs86 folders

I've got a question:

Could you relocate Users and ProgramData to a mapped network drive if it was available and accessible during audit mode? I imagine it would have to be on a static IP. What would happen if the network drive rebooted and dropped of the network momentarily (NAS reboot?)

Hi,

Great step-by-step PDF document "Relocate User folders during Windows 7 installation ". It says under the section "Creating a script for System Preparation Tool":

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

I am installing from a USB flash drive. This may sound like a silly question, but will Windows install assign a drive letter to the flash drive? And is there a way to figure it out what it is? Theoretically it should be after C (my SSD), D (letter assigned to my DVD drive by Windows) and E(my second hard drive) - so it should be F:, right?

Thx

Ron