Vista user profile location

If the folder location you specified in the Target field does not exist, the Create Message dialog box will appear. Click Yes to create the folder and click OK. Alternatively, you can also select the Move button from the Location tab and browse to the location where you want to store the Documents folder. Similar to several of the readers, I am uncomfortable attempting this myself.

I need a slightly higher level of specificity. Does anyone know whether Microsoft might provide support in this regard, such as in a future build or service pack? I followed this procedure, I believe exactly, but may have made a mistake because after repeating step 15 the second time, no user could log in properly. Thanks for documenting this. I find it rediculious that Microsoft would make it that difficult for anyone to move the users directory.

Thanks again for documenting. Now all Programs also all with hardcoded Filelocation should work, as this method is absolutly transparent too all applications! I did a combination of what Sven and MikeB posted above, copied all and everything to the new partition, including symlinks using a batch file I created from the directory output. I found this the easiest and best way to do this to ensure everything points to the correct place.

Afterwards if all is ok you can delete the old user folder. This is because Windows Desktop Search will ignore mounted volumes or junctions. OK so we are all on the same page i think…none of us want OUR data being stored on the system partition.

I am attempting to digest this reponse as it is a very long one and a techincal response. Therefore, on the TechNet site, I would appreciate review and comment from the techie readers of this thread. Log on to the admin user or create a different user, I had to do it anyway. This user will already have its profile on the new drive thanks to the previous steps.

Create it again and log on — now the new profile will be created in the correct location. I Tried corresponding with the HP help desk and they advised me to restore the system. I did the restoration but did not help as the same error msg still keeps appearing.

Although the computer is working perfectly fine, but one feels something is wrong when he sees the error msg whenever the computer is switched on!!! Can someone help me solve this irritating problem. Sometimes i regret purchasing this damn Vista, so called Wow, i thing the XP was less troublesome. My email address is hkkaram yahoo.

Thanks for the guide! The file will be unloaded now. The applications or services that hold your registry file may not function properly afterwards. I tried undoing the registry changes but got a very broken account most programs either would not run, or had lost their data files. This is not something I recommend if you have a fully working PC as I trashed mine but was in the fortunate position of being able to wipe clean and start again.

I am a little hazy on details as I did all this back in January — March In the long run, this is probably the better solution as the system is then installed in this configuration. I seem to recall I also had to make some registry changes as MS have hardcoded some user paths for some insane reason?! That would make life so much simpler.

After doing this Vista update failed and I made a symbolic link to solve it. Thanks Joshua for the great guide. However you might want to add the information from Roger Hendriks regarding the symbolic links to help with Windows Updates. I was unable for a month to install the KB update. I changed both the user keys and the folders in the ProfileList key itself. How I want to do this trick. Hence, i really, really need a program that can do this for me. But I found nothing during my search on the net.

I want to put all user data on a physically separate harddisc for all the reasons given above. E everything I create myself. Do anyone know of a prog that could possibly aacomplish this? Another approach that may be worth trying is that which I have successfully used under XP for hardcoded folders that cannot be moved by altering the registry.

You could convert the original folder to a junction point which points to the new location on the other partition.

This should move everything safely, allowing independant partition backup, while not having to change the registry at all everything still thinks the default works.

Could this be happening because I do the search and replace on my normal user account after doing it on the admin account? I was seriously about to smash my laptop against the wall the other day no lie.

Anyway, could my problems be because I used search and replace on the admin user as well as my everyday user name? I have not been able to get this to work. After step 8 when I try to log in as a user that has not logged in before I can not. It gives me an error about Profile Service failing and tells me it can not load the profile.

I am able to log back in with the profile that I was using but not the new one. Some help would be most appreciated. I am new to Vista and I use a program called Deepfreeze. Having things going to the same drive as my system drive is a pain. Ok so my Default folder was hidden. I think I managed to get things working thus far.

Had to head to work before I was done but I successfully created a profile that appeared in the new location. I left certain paths alone this time like the Default and ProgramData. I was wondering if you knew how to change the name of the user profile?? I bought a new computer from a friend and it has his name…I would really like to change it.

Any ideas??? You need to be able to use a new administrator account after you perform steps As long as you have the new admin account to use, you should not have issues with experimenting with the other user accounts.

If you are trying to get rid of that, you probably still need to reinstall the OS. I am running IE7 in protected mode and there was one other thing I had to do. Hi all together, i change the users-folder already since W2kPro. And i know an easier way. Make a good backup of your system!!! The o then restore the whole backup to the new destination. ProfileList and below… o restart your computer o logon normal administratur-account o check, where you are at cmd prompt o voila, you are already at the new destination!

What a complete pile of crap Vista is. How unreasonable of users wanting to locate their personal data on a separate partition from the OS. I think we know what MS developers have been doing for the last five years. Now we have to go through this ridiculous long winded process just to get our personal data onto a separate partition. I guess this is what MS define as product differentation.

How else can they justify charging for Vista. I had to get that out of the system. Please note in the beginning of the article that this process will most likely take hours. Congratulations on making a highly useful guide like this. Just wanted you all to know that my trial resulted in a corrupt Vista. I had to turn back at some point because my new user got corrupted.

Then I saw that my old user was corrupted too. Kudos to the people here for trying to help. During the copy it has lost some access rights and is only accessible to admin users, I added access to all users:. I have an easier solution that you may want to consider. The other commands took no time at all. The only issue I may have concerns backups. Apparently some programs will not create a good image of a partition that includes a junction pointing to a different partition.

These programs will try to image the other partition as well. This posting was the closest thing to my specific issue. The person who put my system together WinXP sp2 somehow put his name in and it shows up when you boot. Windows login and Mr. All applications bar browser, and explorer and copy window are closed. Do you know if this is a problem to skip or if so how to get round this?

Hi there! I would greatly appreciate those that will respond to this! Thank you David on November 27, ; for the useful information regarding setting the integrity levels. I could not have solved that problem without your help. Run this command from the command line. David on March 23, ; those files may be skipped since they are not needed and will be automatically recreated when the system needs them. Pau on March 29, ; no, you may not change the name of the initial user.

The webpage removes certain brackets. Here is the command that worked for me. You may provide your own director and username. What if you were doing some sort of maintenance on your PC such that the new Users hard drive is not available? Then, if something goes wrong with the users drive, I know I can still login okay as Administrator, since its folder is still in the system C: drive.

Or, should I not worry about this and go for the more aesthetically pleasing approach of moving the entire Users folder to a non-system drive? Please email me at firas. Just goes to show, Microsoft have a huge body of developers with infinitely extendable system drives. Personally, I am about to give up on moving my profiles as I can not afford to lose yet more time to ill-behaved systems. No wonder people love to hate Microsoft and to a lesser degree Intel - what should be simple is made difficult.

As far as I can see, if I need to start messing with symbolic links, I might as well go the whole hog and install Unix or Linux or something else other than windows.

Not a single hitch in the process. Seems a lot easier to me. Hello and many thanks for the description and the investigation. But please: Why, after 20 years of creating OS, is still nobody able to just ask at the installation on wich partition to install the unser profiles. I can someone explain me, why we pay for updates that are written for our eyes only. Followed directions with pretty good success and few difficulties until trying to download some drivers.

Followed original insturctions on a clean install. I am unable to download from Internet Explorer. Just hangs. I used the method described in this article at the time I installed Vista in Up till a few days ago I thought it had worked well. I thought they were just badly written. Turns out they rely on file virtualisation. Has anyone else had this problem? If I try to share a folder, it ends up sharing my entire Users directory!

As I am too lazy creating an unattended installation, these steps are the first I take after reinstalling. Thanks Josuha, It worked well. I have just transferred to vista and have always had my data on a different drive.

I always do this before installing any software. Now that we have done this for the first time, What about after a format again. Do you have to move the original user folder out of that drive and start from the beginning and once it is all done then copy the stuff back into the respective folders.

Hi Joshua. Despite my best efforts, I ended up creating and setting up a local profile that is connected to the domain network, using the MSSQL database with ODBC connection quite nicely, but I anticipate problems when we migrate to Exchange Server in the near future. Appreciate any thoughts you may have on this. I realize I can redo everything in the network profile, but was hoping there might be an easier way. Thanks, Cathy. I have some problems. When I use the explorer to run the shortcuts they work.

Can anyone tell me what did I do wrong? Hi Folks Excellent Artical from the original author and great feedback from all those who tried. I have one simple question to ask! Can the location of the new drive be a Network Drive? If i can point the Profile to the network drive that will make all the users documents and settings available from any PC. Seems the robocopy was a better solution for copying the files. I added a few params to the command:. Not sure yet if this helps though.

Also, if it complains about ntuser. Joshua and commenters, thanks. Pegula, in my home premium vista, the only folders that have location tabs to allow movement are pictures and music, not documents nor any many of the others. I have decided to go with another approach, just create a backup partition and back up the users folders. Acronic true image can do this easily.

Not what i really wanted to do but it should avoid major headaches. Using safe mode move the Users folder to the new location. I have another, niftier solution, which saves you the entire registry editing mumbo-jumbo. Make sure that Folder Properties are set so that all files are visible including hidden and system files. Log off and log in as JohnDoe, et voila. Login as administrator 2. Logout 5. Login as Administrator 6.

Reboot 9. Login as Bob. So for example, if I put my registration details for alcohol, next time I reboot computer, I have to put again. My system is a Vista x64 with integrated SP1. I used the above method to move the entire Users tree to a different drive when I first got a clean machine. I think you guys all think Vista is a real new OS. It is much more simple than any of the above optiosn to move a profile directory and maintain its rights. First I did as others mentioned.

I set the Default, ProfilesDirectory and Public keys to point at a seperate volume. Then I created a dummy admin, and logged in as my dummy admin, confirmed the location of the new admin profile in the secondary volume i.

Now the trick: I first set my file view to allow my dummy admin to see invisible, hidden and system files. In the Advanced tab is a User Profiles section. Click the Settings button and you can move each profile right there, Be sure to move the profile to the same folder name.

This will move the whole profile and keep the same user rights! No screwing around with command line or anything. In the registry make sure all your user profiles point to the right folders now. The user profiles will start with S lots of numbers usually. If you see Short names like S, those are Service profiles, leave those be, only edit your user profile paths.

Actually a correction to the above. I menation that for the guy who had a gig profile above. And sorry this still requires a copy. Thanks for the responses. Here is what I am thinking of doing:.

Will this work? Basically what I want to do is just re-isntall the OS without really touching any of the existing user accounts, just migrating them over to the fresh OS install. This really should be easier to do.

I will not suggest one because I did not find one single program that worked perfectly. I ended up downloading a few different freeware applications and using all of them.

Now you can make hard links to directories, eliminating tht need to mess with the registry. I performed this today and everything seems ok except no Sound. Im currently troubleshooting. If anyone has and ideas where I should start looking please reply thanks Robert. Is this possible and if so can you point to a procedure.

I looked around and am drawing blank. It is flat said a idiotic move of MS to provide a OS that cannot accomplish the most simple user management operation out of the box in a user friendly way. Thinking of corporate usage this is a pure joke.

Your system drive will clog up with crap overtime all residing in the profile appdata path gigs over gigs , and ure not able to resassign this path without major vasectomy to your registry and internal application connections.

I just wonder why theres no System tool avail that will do this for people who dont want to fuzz around like that. Much more easier is build own Install CD using nLite or vLite and change location of user directory and many more system folders. JDonner, I wrote This solution is for advanced users.

It is complicated. Do not critize what you do not understand. Your statement is inaccurate. My method works. It you tried this and had a problem then you made an error. Please explain your problem and I will try to help.

Thanks this information was quite helpful. Convenient of course as it was a fresh install. Go to your default user name folder. Right mouse button click on the folder you wish to move. Click properties. Just create a new folder in the location you want and go via the file properties, location tab, in the folder you wish to move from the default user area.

The first owner of the laptop is Sharon. Now the laptop is turned over to Rica since Sharon resigned. This is great! This is probably the first thing I did after installing Firefox, of course on the my laptop when I installed the Windows 7 RC! This method is great; tons better than the half-baked folder-redirection solutions floating around the web.

In my case, I created a sacrificial first account during installation, ran through the process and then created the accounts I actually wanted. Once everything was working, I deleted the first account make sure you have a working administration account first!

They are non-trivial in Windows 7, and it gets very upset if the permissions are not set correctly. I lost desktop search and upset IE8 by getting this wrong. You can open two explorer windows, and bring up the security tabs for both old and new folders, and then edit the security settings one at a time.

If you do have to move existing user accounts, once again pay very careful attention to security settings on the root folder, including ownership. Thankfully, in Windows 7, you can assign ownership of a folder to a different user i. I now have a number of working Windows 7 installations with user profile data on a separate volume — happy bunny. This is how we move the entire Vista User profiles folder to a different partition E: in our case. We activate this script with a local policy gpedit.

The script has to be a computer startup script in order to run it before any profile is loaded. After we reboot the pc and the script has run once, we remove all previously mentioned settings.

I know about Jay, because as you can see, he left a similar comment on my blog. I had an exchange of mails with him, where I asked for proof. After changing the registry to point to my D drive and trying to log in as a newly created user, I get the following error message:. Any thoughts? I have the same problem as Fabian. Mine is a clean Windows 7 install with nothing else loaded.

I want to do the move first. Curt, I figured out a way around it, sorry I forgot to post it. I created a new user without making any registry changes and logged into that account so the user folder was created in the c: drive by default. I then logged in as a different temporary user, and navigated to. I then moved my user files to that location, logged out of the temp account, and logged back in as that user. Thanks Fabian. I just deleted the directories from the libraries and re-added them and the status message was gone.

My user ID is set as administrator, which has full control. Registry is written only after Windows Vista has taken a decision. If it's not documented, then you can't rely on it. One of the major reasons software companies keep a lot of this stuff undocumented is because once it's published, you can't change it without annoying a LOT of people. You need to ask MS - maybe Raymond Chen could help, but I suspect he'd give you the same advice - you may well find out, but it will not be reliable :- — paxdiablo.

I had already put forward the question through MSDN and am still awaiting reply : — sangupta. Hemant Hemant Thanks for the sheet. But, I am looking for documentation as to how Windows decide where to map these folders to, upon installation.

The entries you have made are already as in the registry settings see previous answer. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. Post as a guest Name. Ask a question. Quick access. Search related threads. Remove From My Forums. Asked by:. Archived Forums. Windows Vista Setup. For deployment issues, please use the Windows Vista Deployment and Imaging forum.

Sign in to vote. I am posting this link here to ask, is this article is functionally correct? For those expert in Vista, is there a reason not to do this? Is there a better way to accomplish the entire move of the "Users" folder? Is there a "Wizard" which can accomplish this? Sunday, July 8, PM. Moving the special folders Windows Vista lets you easily relocate the shell folder paths for Documents, Music and Pictures folder using the Property sheet.

Proposed as answer by ashrack Friday, November 20, AM. Wednesday, July 18, PM. Proposed as answer by mmma Sunday, August 17, PM. Monday, July 30, PM. I found the solution for the Vista update problem when hacking the registry. Saturday, September 1, AM. Thursday, March 20, PM. Tuesday, May 6, AM. If Windows won't let you rename the directory, then you have not correctly changed the registry settings.

In other words, Windows is still accessing that directory and will not allow you to mess with it. Make sure you edit the Registry with Administrator permissions. Thursday, June 12, AM.

Thursday, August 14, PM. Friday, November 6, PM. That is exactly what I have been looking for for the past hour now. Thx man. Friday, November 20, AM. I informed them that there is no such default path in Windows made by the OS—that clearly it is a typing error—thus they should replace the slashes with commas as such: To reset the shell folder paths for Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders in Windows Vista Saturday, July 18, PM.

To move user folders, simply R. Monday, July 20, AM. Value data. My Music. My Video. Start Menu. Yesterday we showed you how to move your home folder to another drive in OS X , and we've already done the My Documents move on XP ; if you're a Vista user, now it's your turn. It's pretty easy to do in OS X and XP, but as blogger Joshua Mouch points out along with other readers , moving your user profile location in Vista is a bit more difficult. As our resident Windows expert the How-To Geek also points out, "moving the profile folder is