How To Seamlessly Share All Your Files Between Windows 7 And Windows 8

We’ve shown you how to dual boot Windows 7 and 8 side by side, but if you’re annoyed that your Windows 7 partition still houses all your files, here’s how to get both partitions using the same Documents folder.

When you dual boot Windows 8, you’ll still be able to access files on your Windows 7 partition, but you’ll probably have to manually navigate there every time an open or save dialog box opens up. To solve this problem, you can just tell Windows 8 to use your Windows 7 user folders — Documents, Downloads, Music, Movies, and the like — as your Windows 8 user folders as well. Note that this won’t migrate any of your programs over, just your personal files — you’ll have to reinstall your favourite programs. We recommend using something like Ninite to get it done in one fell swoop.

Head into your Windows 8 user folder — under C:\Users\[Your User Name] \ — and right click on your Documents folder. Hit Properties and go to the Location tab. Click on the button that says “Move”, and navigate to your Windows 7 drive’s Users/[Your User Name] /Documents folder. Hit Ok, and merge the files if you so choose. Now, Windows 8 will always use your Windows 7 Documents folder as its Documents folder as well. Repeat this process for Music, Videos, and the other files in that folder, and you’ll be all set.

The other big upside to this is that if you reinstall any programs that keep their preferences in those folders (like iTunes, for example), the program will open up as if you never left Windows 7, and you won’t have to reconfigure everything. This’ll only apply to a few programs, but it’s a nice convenience.