Want help to permanently move User folders in Windows Vista

[SinguIar]

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I need some help to permanently move the User folders to some other location in Windows Vista. Like the default users folders lies in the C drive. Which is Windows directory. I want to move that to the other drive. I tried to cut paste them but it did not worked. I am sure there would be some way by which I can put them in the separate partition.

[groovyKimo]

You can do that by hacking the actual location of those folders. You will need to modify the system registry to make them working on the different partition. The location is located in - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. You can here change the same and add the one you are looking for.

[gary.lane]

I know this is an old thread but it seems the most relevant to what I need to do. I will try it out tonight but just wanted to check if you had discoveerd any untoward effects of doign this? I was a little put out to read: on the Technet site under this key change. Hi, just registered to thank you for this brillian Idea !! :) Did you this for programms folders too? And it's hopefully working? I'll try when I got my new hardware. Thinking of 50GB for Vista x64, 150GB Programms and the rest for the users directory. Jawdropping simple! Thank you again! Greez!

[mrgcav]

I can provide you some simple steps to move the special folders. This contains My Documents. You can put them in other partition and it works fine. To change the drive path follow the below steps:

• Right click on My Documents
• Click on Properties
• Click on Location
• Then click Move and choose the folder
• Click on Apply > and click yes to put the new location.
• Click OK and done.

The second method to do the same is through Windows registry. The method is mentioned above but it is not complete. The completes steps are :

• Click on Start > type regedit and hit enter.
• Go to -- HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ User Shell Folders
• Double click on the folder name and modify the value as per your need.
• Close registry edition and reboot your system.

[Scatterlogical]

It looks to be a bit complicated what is mentioned above. I am sure there would be some way by which you can do that in easier way. Your default user profiles are configured on the windows partition. Moving them to some other place might be complicated.

[PigLover]

OK, I got the idea of mounting the volume on top of users. Sounds like it should work great.

One question: what happens when the disk you are using for 'users' fails? You don't have anyplace left to have an administrator log in and fix it, do you? Is Vista just hung and you are SOL or is there a graceful way to deal with this?

I really want to do this - it will solve a HUGE problem for me - but I've been burned in the past when a disk failed. The whole idea is to make the system more resilient and I am worried about creating a new complication.

Thoughts?

For me I hadn't planned to relocate the programs folder. My plan is to build the main drive to be as compact and fast as possible. I have samples of 32G Intel X25-Es (the single-level enterprise class SSDs) that I was going to put together into a 64Gb raid-0 for performance. Then run Users on a pair of 750Gb Seagate's running in a raid-1 for reliability. This way response on the 'programs' file and OS will be faster than life. Since the OS and programs don't change too much I'll just take and image weekly onto a normal bootable drive, which I think I can even completely automate with Ghost (I prefer Acronis over Ghost for backups but Ghost will at least automate an image onto a bare drive). Seems perfectly safe AND fast. Just need to remember to relocate the pagefile so that you don't to too many writes onto the SSDs.

I still worry though - how will Vista behave if the mount point fails. I think I might actually leave 'users' where it is, including having an admin user built and left there, and then just mount the one user directory with any files in it (mine).

[agent86oz]

Sorry if I am a bit slow but I don't understand everything written here too well but ready to learn. I have previously just dragged each users folder to a second D: hard drive, I think the Favourites and Contacts folders have issues. I downloaded your software and did a scan and even though the shell folders have been moved it does not show anything on drive D: I have read the help but still feel out of my depth. What I basically want is to move users folders to the Data drive and all new users to turn up in the Data drive. I don’t know how to use Junction Link Magic to do this. I have copied all the shell folders from Drive C to Drive D for user Ian but your software does not show that when I do a scan. I believe the most common request by far is people want to run an application after windows install an application that takes all user shell folders and place them on an alternate drive and create that as default for new users added. They would also like this to have existing user content on the C: drive moved to the data drive at the same time. Failing that a step by step procedure would be great. 1 procedure for an individual user and 1 procedure for setting for global new users created. I appreciate your time will be valuable and this is volunteer work but I for one would happily pay $20 + for an application that did this with some sort of walk through wizard or even just did it all without any explanation.

Thanks for your time and without your forum post I would not be aware of this. I was also interested in your indexing question but wouldn't you just index the drive the folders were the data exists, that is what I do currently. Ok that all sounds over my head. The drag shell folders to drive D seems to works for what I do. I image all drives with Acronis True Image. I have Windows home server for backing up all computers overnight and file duplication on for critical data and offsite backup using Jungle disk for important stuff. The only time I have lost data several times is when I messed with different OS on the first drive. Since moving to a second or third drive for data I have never lost data only OS issues with multi boot and Acronis fixes that fast. All my mistakes occure after 1am in the early hours and it has been a big day and you accidentally click delete on something automatically without thinking :-) I still think there is a market for someone to do the shell folders thing though as it is widely discussed. I might also look at the registry settings some people are using. I was just wanting to do it right as I have 3 new computers and thought there must be a better way, I am fussy like that.

Thanks for your prompt reply.

[mzfasmh]

It can be done but if you run system restore or if you re-install the OS it will be complicated to get the old settings back. It is better if you leave the settings as it is. Another best option is to keep a regular backup of user folders. A regular backup gives you instant way to restore the folders with few clicks. And it really works quiet well.

[benze]

Sorry for pointing back to an old thread, but am having a miserable time here trying to move Vista/Win7 profiles. In XP, it was quite simple. Move the entire Docs & Settings folder to another drive, create a junction pointing c:\docs & settings to the new drive and you were done. Relatively easy stuff (a few intermediate steps left out for brievity). Now in Vista, I can use almost the same hack, with the one exception that when I move the Users folder to a seperate drive, none of the OS junctions contained within the profiles are moved as well. I have tried to recreate them by hand, but can't seem to get the right combination of ACLs and attributes to make them exist exactly as they were prior to the move. After recreating the junctions, they do not get hidden when "Hide Operating System Files" is enabled. THe original profile junctions do not have the system or hidden attributes set, and yet they are still hidden. Does anyone know how I can recreate these profiles (including junctions!) on another drive?

[heliox]

Yes that is correct to some extent. It is more complicated to do the same. I thought there would be some kind of application that do the job. Somehow it is good to keep a backup of the same so that you can restore that much quickly.