User Folders - Change Default Location

Hi,

Thank you for this tutorial and the excellent answers. I read through all 22 pages of conversations in this thread (as well as many of those in the other tutorials about moving whole Profiles and having new Profiles stored in different locations) and somehow, I still have questions...not sure why my brain works like that.


I just bought a new HP - my first Windows 7 machine so I have a lot to learn. In the past, every time I've gotten a new machine, I've sworn to myself that I was "going to do things differently" and segregate my system files from my data files (docs, pics, etc) and never did it. But the first thing I did after getting this new machine (after loading AV and running windows updates) was to partition the 1TB HDD to (roughly) 250GB for the system and applications and 750TB for my data.


Anyway... it seems that many of this thread's questions and many of your replies revolve around HDD space issues and how if space is the concern then the best solution is not to move the user's folders but to create new ones on a separate drive and include them in libraries. But with this huge drive, it's not a space issue for me. It's a question of 4 things:

1. being able to quickly back up my system;
2. being able to quickly restore my sytem in event of a problem;
3. being able to easily back up my DATA without backing up a lot of extraneous application files which can be easily re-installed;
4. being able to easily reinstall Windows if it gets slow and clunky over time, without having to deal with my personal DATA at that time.

Can you address the issue of the system image having to include the DATA drive if I relocate ANY of the user's folders (My Documents, My Pictures) to the DATA drive?

Right now, my 250GB SYSTEM partition's image file is 54GB. If I move about 1GB of personal data from the Documents folder (currently in the User Profile folder on the SYSTEM partition) to a folder on my 750GB DATA partition, are you saying that future backup images will include the DATA partition? Will the image include just that 1GB piece of the DATA drive or much more of it? While space for files, etc isn't an issue, keeping multiple copies of larger and larger system images will be.

I'm new to the practice of system images - they seem like a much better idea than just backing up files if the goal is to get up and running again quickly. BUT, over time, as one's Windows installation gets more and more cluttered, slow, and clunky, the system images will reflect that. So then doing a wipe and reinstalling Windows means losing all my User Profile info, right? Whereas if I had my User Profiles sitting on that DATA partition, I could wipe the SYSTEM partition and my User Profiles would still be intact. Do I have that right? Or is there a problem with my logic?


As a follow up question to that last one, IF you wipe and reinstall Windows from scratch, CAN you even use User Profiles that you saved from your prior system? If not, then is there even any reason to save them separately from the system (as they would be if they resided on a DATA drive)?


Thank you for your help.

Thanks for your response. Based on that, here is how I think things will be set up. Could you please comment and let me know if it seems that I understood your instructions?

1TB drive
- 250GB partition with Win7 system, applications, User Profiles & User Folders, Libraries.
---- this partition will be periodically imaged using Win7 backup/image function, with the images stored on an attached external 500GB HDD.
---- this partition will also be backed up via Carbonite.

- 750GB partition - DATA drive. Will contain folders like "documents", "pictures", "videos", etc which will be INCLUDED folders in the appropriate Libraries mentioned above.
---- this partition will be backed up only via Carbonite (until I get another external HDD big enough to handle it).

Do I have that right?

One other confusion I have is where to put my Dropbox folder - the default location is on the 250 system partition //User/user-name/Dropbox or should I relocate it to the 750 Data partition?

Thank you again

Cool. Thanks very much. Dropbox does give the option of putting it anywhere the user wants, during installation. But I think that once it's installed, I'd have to uninstall and reinstall to get it moved. And...since I already installed it, I'll leave it where it is!

Thank you again. I think I'll be happy with this setup.

Cheers,
Buck

Hi Brink,

Thank you for your excellent tutorial. Could you please explain to me.

I have the SSD (C: drive) for Windows 7 Pro x64 and applications, the HDD (D: drive) is my data storage.

I can reach the My Document folder by three ways:


1. Desktop -> Libraries ->Documents ->My Documents
2. Desktop -> (User-Name)->My Documents
3. Desktop -> Computer -> Local Disk (C: ) -> Users -> (User-Name) -> My Documents


The # 3 is the real location of the folder by default. When I move the My Document folder from C: drive on D: drive, the folder disappears from location # 3 but exists (reference ?, shortcut ?) in location # 2. If I delete My Document folder from location # 2, then my real My Document folder is deleted from its new location on drive D:

Is this as it should be?


Should I delete all User folders (My Documents, My Music, etc…) from location #2 or not ?


Thank you.

dear brink, hello how do you do...?

um, i've been reading about the user folders - change default location, and when i installed my windows earlier this year i followed the post#1 instruction and move my Videos to D and my Documents to I

I moved it from C:/users/user-name/my videos => D:/my videos

now I'd like to ask...,

if I would like to rename the D my videos folder to smthn else like "Random 123", Can I just simply do it, or do i have to be concern with changing some paths or some other things as well?

secondly, I partitionize my drive to C D F and G, E is the DVD drive.
CD are primary and FG are logical.
I'd like to change the drive letter from G => I, is it as simple as changing it from the disk management menu or is there anything i should be concern about since the drive letter skips some letter? (i mean, instead of CDEFG, it's CDEF-I)

thirdly, i'd like to ask, my DVD drive default path is E, is it possible to change it to other letters without causing any problems? I'd like to change it to say Z or something. Or is it best left alone in terms of optical disk drive?


thank you very much,

kungfupanda