Change Your User Profile Location In Vista

Why not use subst from the command line and map a virtual drive to the original location, hence leaving those files untouched?

I see a world where my L: drive is only a virtual mapping to the c:\users\username folder

jlarroulet

@this out in the article.

klintman

I looked at the 21 steps and thought, "nah." And yes, I understand every bit of it. I just don't want to do it. I really dislike the User folder in Vista. I don't like having all that AppData and Roaming info on my C drive. I don't like having two copies of many of my folders (2 "Documents" folders: one yellow, one blue). I just don't like it... don't like it.

TheOtherHalf

@chrizzle: Well that's plain not true. It will only ever end in misery if you don't know what you're doing.

@omegahelix: Precisely, I got C:\Downloads, username\Downloads and Documents\Downloads all as junctions.

I just relocate the Documents folder as it's the only one with data I care about backing up. I haven't had any problems in 4 or 5 months with this.

SittenSpynne

don't muck with your profile, it will always end in misery.

just use a utility like karen's file replicator to backup your data folders in case you have to re-install.

there are a ton of issues that can be fixed in windows by logging in as a local admin, changing the name of the user profile and logging in and letting windows re-create the profile.

chrizzle

@omegahelix: I was also going to mention that as well. It's surprising how many of the profile folders are just links or junctions.

LethAL

@omegahelix: That was the thing I was going to say! This way, everything is really stored somewhere else and it doesn't affect old settings in other apps!

meilon

Crap! Why couldn't this article have come out yesterday, when I mucked up my profile, couldn't figure out how to fix it, and spent hours reformatting?!?

Dukeman330

What about moving the user profile folder and then making a symbolic or hard link to the new location?

omegahelix

This is just a bad idea. If you aren't an very savvy windows user this just will lead to problem after problem you will have to deal with running many apps.

Jake Eddington

@Chris Memering: This is what I did in Vista to move those directories to my Data drive. It's a pain to move each of them that way though. At that point in time I couldn't find a way to move them all at once.

sjkeegs

@Chris Memering:
Agreed.
Either method will result in some unwanted issues.
Simply move the folders you need moved (you don't "need" to move the whole user folder.
Then having the start menu buttons, ie: user, documents, downloads, etc... point to the new location is more than adequate.

I can't stress enough how much I really hope they fix this in W7!
Vista SP1 works great for me, and this user folder biz is the primary thorn in my side with the OS.
It's understandable why this did this, but it's also understandable how they could fix it!

ThaMofo

Of course it is the same in Windows 7 because of the AppData folder in the user profile folder... In XP there was Documents and Settings\Username and there were the "My Documents", "Application Data" and "Local Settings" folders. So it was easy to move the "My Documents" folder without affecting the data stored by installed applications.

singularity0821

EDIT: it was error 1327

Nick Reuter

SO I did this some time ago for certain media folders, and things work fine, with the exception that when I try to install new programs now, I sometimes get an error that the location is unavailable (since I moved these to a NAS).

I think I get some kind of error 3631 off the top of my head.... it's a 4-digit error code.

Nick Reuter

that lemmings one is win.

In Vista, I would recommend on moving specific folders and not the whole (Username) folder. Installing certain applications will re-create the folder structure in the default location, causing duplicates to start showing up when looking at your account folder. Normally, I just relocate the documents, downloads, movies, pictures, and videos folder since those are the only one with significant amounts of data on them.

Chris Memering

@omegahelix: Thank you so much. :)

ssj4Gogeta

Why not just re-map individual folders (like Username/Documents) to another folder ? I did this with my laptop by mapping all these to a corresponding document in a folder I called "D:/Computer/".

It's done from the folder's properties , and it's much simpler than going through the registry

abdul+rahmansibahi

No edit? Ouch.

*3. Run > mklink /j C:\Users\*user* *path*\*user*

You get the idea.

klintman

I have to say that I've never agreed with the concept of moving Windows system folders to a separate drive or partition. However, if you need more space in a pinch until you get a bigger drive, use the built-in junction support in Vista.

1. Log in as a different admin user (you may have to create a temporary user for this purpose)
2. Move the user folder you want to a new place
3. Run > mklink /j C:\Users\ \

That's my method. :-)

klintman

OK, that link was technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx

Since the link got munged.

Easiest way to do this is to create your new user directory.

Go to [technet.microsoft.com] , download and extract the junction.exe. Or be real brave and just copy it from \\live.sysinternals.com\tools\junction.exe (it works!)

Log in as Administrator and move your old user directory to your new location, including all hidden and system files. You have to, as you can't move them when you are logged in as yourself.

To into your C:\Users directory and remove your now empty directory. Now run "c:where you put it\junction oldusernamedirectory newusernamedirectory" with the correct substitutions. Do a directory, you should see your old user directory name, but it will now be marked as a instead of .

Logout and back in as yourself, everything should be just peachy, no worries about a program hardcoding itself to C:\User\profile\xxxxxx.

The great thing about doing it this way is that you don't even have to point it to the same drive. After having issues with my kids' computer, I set up all the users this way, pointing all of them to a new partition/hard drive so that all I have to do is format and reinstall C: and know all the user data is elsewhere. Speaking of which, I'll be blowing that machine away soon, and trying out Server 2008 as a workstation...

I'm such a geek!

I used Joshua Mouch's guide a few months back. It didn't go as far as I wanted it to, though. I hate the idea of separate users, as I am the only person who will ever use my computer. I have crippled the UAC, and use "C:\" as My Documents, with Appdata in "C:\Data". Lots of regediting there, and there are a few folders I can't move, such as Security Certificates.

ShyamaPolites

In Win7, simply use the Libraries functions. There are some things that really should be left where Windows puts them, and User Profiles are one of those.

However, moving things such as Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music is trivial in Win7.

@Dukeman330: Hours reformatting? Assuming you mucked up a recent install, a quick format should have done the trick. About the only time I do a full format is on a new drive.

Ucla74

While Windows 7 works basically the same as Vista, there is much less need to move stuff due to the "Libraries" concept. This means you can have a "Documents" folder on some other drive in addition to your regular "My Documents" folder, and you can treat the aggregate as your Documents for most purposes. Ditto for Music, Pictures, Videos, etc.

CareyOceanid

@Mason Wiley: The second article tells you how to do it this way. Don't bother with the first.

Mason Wiley

Why would you do that much work? You can change the location in the folder properties and it will ask you if you want to move the files. Click yes. Do this for each folder and you're done.

Mason Wiley

@Bryan Price: Seconded

Dave Barboza

finally i'd get to manage this on windows 7, just needed to add permissions to users on directory d:\users\default and it worked following a procedure very similar to "Vista for Beginners" (not so beginners i guess)

BretNaso

precisely i'm doing this horrible thing and i have about 2 days trying it on windows 7. On vista i've used Registry Workshop (great tool for edit the registry but it's trial) to replace in windows registry all references to the original path to the users folders to the new path, but i didn't test if i could create a new profile. Now on windows 7 i did the same thing, but when i was going to create a new profile i'm getting an error on the user profile service.. I'm going to test the methods shared above and i'll let you know when i'm done.

JoyceEnemaster

@klintman:
c:\>mklink
'mklink' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Yes, I know, google it!

@Dave Barboza: On my instructions, or my being a geek? :)