Move \Users folder once for all

  • Thread starter Thread starter Peter Meinl
  • Start date Start date
P

Peter Meinl

How can we move the \Users folder to a different location (e.g. from
c:\users to d:\users?

I know that one can manually change the location of the subfolders of a
specific user (e.g. c:\users\<myname>\Documents) using Properties|Location.
I am looking for a solution to move the \Users folder location so that the
folders for new users automatically go there.
I read this is possible at setup using the Vista Automated Installation Kit
to create an Autounattend.xml file, so I assume there is a registry setting.

What about Outlook and Windows Mail? Do they store the Emails under
\Users\...\Documents or do we still have to move them manually.

The background of my question is that I am using a Matrix Raid with my swap
and system partition striped and my data partition mirrored and want the
user data on the mirror:
Stripe:
Swap: no backup
System: image backup after significant changes
Mirror:
Data: daily backups
 
The following Autounattend.xml file using the setup /unattend switch worked
for me.
setup.exe /unattend:a:\Autounattend.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
<settings pass="oobeSystem">
<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup"
publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS"
processorArchitecture="x86">
<FolderLocations>
<ProfilesDirectory>D:\Users</ProfilesDirectory>
</FolderLocations>
</component>
</settings>
</unattend>

It only worked for x86 and using the setup switch.
Could not get it working for x64. Tried different settings for
processorArchitecture "*", "ia64". The valid values seem not to be
documented in AIK.
Could not get it working with booting from DVD and Autounattend.xml on
Floppy.
 
A colleague came up with another solution:

Change the ProfilesDirectory under the following registry key:
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

This will cause user data of new users to be created at the new location.
The data of the user created at setup will stay on the system drive.
 
Hello everyone,
Its 18 months later. I invented the first method to move Vista's users
folder of the C: Drive. Got alot of email from it.
http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/aspnet/30363432/-move-users-folder-on.aspx

Until I discovered Scatterlogical's idea, not much work had been done
including myself.
Scatterlogical your solution is very inventive. But may be good for NTFS
Volumes only. I will have to test it. I do not like NTFS. I try to use FAT32
when possible. The new ExFAT looks promising.
To what extent have you tested your method ?
Does this not leave the original folder in tact taking up space ?
Scatterlogical Please contact me at (e-mail address removed)


(Scatterlogical
Click to expand...
Hmmm, all sounds too hard guys :P. I have a simpler solution, easy to set
up, works flawlessly so far (although I'm not sure about that upgrade
problem, but I'd think it's easy enough to resolve when set up this way), and
the solution would have been staring you in the face, since all the legacy
user paths are dealt with this way... Just create a directory junction/mount
point!

I did it using a mount point; you create a new partition to hold the
profiles, copy the whole contents of c:\users onto the partition, then reboot
off the vista CD. Go to repair>command prompt, then from there you rename
c:\users to something like c:\oldusers, create a new empty dir c:\users, then
use MOUNTVOL to mount the partition to it. Or you could create a new
directory junction to the path of your choice (although, correct me if I'm
wrong, but I do believe a junction has to link to a location on the same
volume, otherwise mount the vol).

Now you can reboot and voila! Vista doesn't seem to know the difference,
all your paths are intact and your user profiles are on another volume, so
you can trash vista and reinstall (or clone a backup image, whatever) with
ease whenever you need to. Actually, I believe there's other advantages too -
shadow copies will be segregated between system and users volumes, plus I'm
thinking it may even have a performance advantage since it will reduce
system-wide fragmentation and provide smaller, more specific search indexes
etc. I'm just about to make an extra partition to do the same for my program
files too; so system, apps and users are contained in their own domains.

So you're not relying on the hope that changing the users path explicitly
(in the registry etc.) is going to affect everything - for all intensive
purposes, the path is still the same, the show keeps rolling, and your system
is none the wiser! )




Piglover, (what a name)

You make good point. What does happen if your ?:/users drive fails. If
it fails during an OS secession then your computer functionality will
diminish but you should not crash, as data is retained in memory. Open
programs will need to be saved elsewhere. restart will not likely happen.
If your are rebooting and your ?:/users drive failed you problaly will
not boot ot boot to a blank windows screen.
In either case as long as you are dual booting and have made a backup copy
of ?:/users YOU ARE NOT SOL or screwed.

Currentaly I am going with new equipment quad processors and all 64bit
OS's in a penta-boot (thats five OS's) Also messing with RAID 1+0.


("PigLover said:
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?
Click to expand...
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?


--
PigLover
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PigLover's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/piglover.htm
View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/vista-setup-install/620001.htm

http://forums.techarena.in
Click to expand...

Lastly the Junction Link program is nice but linited to NTFS. So it NOT the
univeral solution like I created originally.
Since I created the original solution and am a microsoft beta tester for
windows 7, and that Microsoft is stuck in their ways.
A similar solution for Windows 7 is required.
(e-mail address removed)
 
MRGCAV you must be dumb,
there's a builtin function, what the hell did you invented? ahahah

I never read so many bullshits all together
 
PigLover said:
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?
Click to expand...

Ok, this is an old thread. But still as I have used this method with XP and
now with 7 (don't know about vista) I have some experience with "failing". I
started this, because defragging (back then defragging maybe really had an
effect ;-) ) took a very long time for the whole drive (had cygwin installed,
which has tons of small files). And I also thought it would have performance
advantages and I btw. liked it, how most Linux distros did this by default.

So I first moved cygwin to it's own partition and mounted it back to the
original location (this was easy because all open references could be closed
while running windows).

Then I moved the whole apps folder to another partition. This was a little
bit harder, because I had to "kill" some programs/drivers that were always
accessing their folder. cygwin was still on it's own partition mounted in a
mounted folder ;-)

Some time later when the hd got full, I started by moving the "my documents"
folder ("Eigene Dateien" in the German version I use) just by using setting
another path. Which of course broke some programs (and the file history of
every program) because they still tried to use the path from install time.

So I took the hard step to mount a partition in the original place. I used
backup and restore to copy the whole "document and settings" folders contents
to another temp folder and changed all the ProfileList path variables in the
registry to the new value (they want be used until a reboot). After a reboot
I could move the contents of "documents and settings" to an empty partition.
Now that this folder would be empty, i could mount this partition back to
"document and settings". Back to the registry changing back the path values,
then a reboot and all was done!

Now for the failing: somehow it happend 3 times that the partition would get
unmounted (always after uninstalling some programs, which had older
uninstallers). I don't know how XP would even allow this. This should not be
able to happen, Microsoft!! In more than 10 years using Linux I never had a
problem with partitions.

Nevertheless it is noticeable immediately because e. g. the desktop is empty
or the start menu doesn't work anymore, although it took me nearly half an
hour to figure out what the problem was the first time it happend. I even did
a reboot and could log in but was greeted with many errors of nonexisting
files/folders aso. If this is the case you can't mount back the partition,
because windows will already have created files that are in use in the now
real "documents and settings" folder.

The solution: assign a drive letter do the partition (it's a good idea to
keep it in addition to the mount point) and change the profile path values in
the registry to reflect the change. Reboot (everything should look normal
already), empty the "documents and settings" directory and mount back the
partition to it. Change the path values back and reboot.

So: yes, you can log in and as most admin tools are in the windows directory
you can even repair it without rescue disk. Again, it shouldn't happen!

The files on another partition has already come in handy when adding a new
hd for space. Just leave the system on the old drive (as long as the new disk
isn't much faster) and mount a new disk in place of the old one. No hassle
with new path values and completely transparent to all programs. By the way
that's one reasons why Linux does it that way. So Microsoft *hint* *hint*,
how about leaving DOS-age drive letters behind? They are not needed anymore.

Btw. I did the same on win7. Unfortunately it didn't get any easier as
Microsoft decided to crosslink/hardlink/whatever many directories (show all
hidden files and see the mess!), but it is still possible.

A system on a 1TB bulk hd is slow. Holiday videos and a music collection on
a SSD is a waste. So, Microsoft - yes, talking to you again - how about
making it easier for everyone and giving this option at install time, like
every Linux distro does? (you are used to copying, so why not start copying
some useful things ;-) )
 
PigLover said:
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?
Click to expand...

Ok, this is an old thread. But still as I have used this method with XP and
now with 7 (don't know about vista) I have some experience with "failing". I
started this, because defragging (back then defragging maybe really had an
effect ;-) ) took a very long time for the whole drive (had cygwin installed,
which has tons of small files). And I also thought it would have performance
advantages and I btw. liked it, how most Linux distros did this by default.

So I first moved cygwin to it's own partition and mounted it back to the
original location (this was easy because all open references could be closed
while running windows).

Then I moved the whole apps folder to another partition. This was a little
bit harder, because I had to "kill" some programs/drivers that were always
accessing their folder. cygwin was still on it's own partition mounted in a
mounted folder ;-)

Some time later when the hd got full, I started by moving the "my documents"
folder ("Eigene Dateien" in the German version I use) just by using setting
another path. Which of course broke some programs (and the file history of
every program) because they still tried to use the path from install time.

So I took the hard step to mount a partition in the original place. I used
backup and restore to copy the whole "document and settings" folders contents
to another temp folder and changed all the ProfileList path variables in the
registry to the new value (they want be used until a reboot). After a reboot
I could move the contents of "documents and settings" to an empty partition.
Now that this folder would be empty, i could mount this partition back to
"document and settings". Back to the registry changing back the path values,
then a reboot and all was done!

Now for the failing: somehow it happend 3 times that the partition would get
unmounted (always after uninstalling some programs, which had older
uninstallers). I don't know how XP would even allow this. This should not be
able to happen, Microsoft!! In more than 10 years using Linux I never had a
problem with partitions.

Nevertheless it is noticeable immediately because e. g. the desktop is empty
or the start menu doesn't work anymore, although it took me nearly half an
hour to figure out what the problem was the first time it happend. I even did
a reboot and could log in but was greeted with many errors of nonexisting
files/folders aso. If this is the case you can't mount back the partition,
because windows will already have created files that are in use in the now
real "documents and settings" folder.

The solution: assign a drive letter do the partition (it's a good idea to
keep it in addition to the mount point) and change the profile path values in
the registry to reflect the change. Reboot (everything should look normal
already), empty the "documents and settings" directory and mount back the
partition to it. Change the path values back and reboot.

So: yes, you can log in and as most admin tools are in the windows directory
you can even repair it without rescue disk. Again, it shouldn't happen!

The files on another partition has already come in handy when adding a new
hd for space. Just leave the system on the old drive (as long as the new disk
isn't much faster) and mount a new disk in place of the old one. No hassle
with new path values and completely transparent to all programs. By the way
that's one reasons why Linux does it that way. So Microsoft *hint* *hint*,
how about leaving DOS-age drive letters behind? They are not needed anymore.

Btw. I did the same on win7. Unfortunately it didn't get any easier as
Microsoft decided to crosslink/hardlink/whatever many directories (show all
hidden files and see the mess!), but it is still possible.

A system on a 1TB bulk hd is slow. Holiday videos and a music collection on
a SSD is a waste. So, Microsoft - yes, talking to you again - how about
making it easier for everyone and giving this option at install time, like
every Linux distro does? (you are used to copying, so why not start copying
some useful things ;-) )
 
PigLover said:
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?
Click to expand...

Ok, this is an old thread. But still as I have used this method with XP and
now with 7 (don't know about vista) I have some experience with "failing". I
started this, because defragging (back then defragging maybe really had an
effect ;-) ) took a very long time for the whole drive (had cygwin installed,
which has tons of small files). And I also thought it would have performance
advantages and I btw. liked it, how most Linux distros did this by default.

So I first moved cygwin to it's own partition and mounted it back to the
original location (this was easy because all open references could be closed
while running windows).

Then I moved the whole apps folder to another partition. This was a little
bit harder, because I had to "kill" some programs/drivers that were always
accessing their folder. cygwin was still on it's own partition mounted in a
mounted folder ;-)

Some time later when the hd got full, I started by moving the "my documents"
folder ("Eigene Dateien" in the German version I use) just by using setting
another path. Which of course broke some programs (and the file history of
every program) because they still tried to use the path from install time.

So I took the hard step to mount a partition in the original place. I used
backup and restore to copy the whole "document and settings" folders contents
to another temp folder and changed all the ProfileList path variables in the
registry to the new value (they want be used until a reboot). After a reboot
I could move the contents of "documents and settings" to an empty partition.
Now that this folder would be empty, i could mount this partition back to
"document and settings". Back to the registry changing back the path values,
then a reboot and all was done!

Now for the failing: somehow it happend 3 times that the partition would get
unmounted (always after uninstalling some programs, which had older
uninstallers). I don't know how XP would even allow this. This should not be
able to happen, Microsoft!! In more than 10 years using Linux I never had a
problem with partitions.

Nevertheless it is noticeable immediately because e. g. the desktop is empty
or the start menu doesn't work anymore, although it took me nearly half an
hour to figure out what the problem was the first time it happend. I even did
a reboot and could log in but was greeted with many errors of nonexisting
files/folders aso. If this is the case you can't mount back the partition,
because windows will already have created files that are in use in the now
real "documents and settings" folder.

The solution: assign a drive letter do the partition (it's a good idea to
keep it in addition to the mount point) and change the profile path values in
the registry to reflect the change. Reboot (everything should look normal
already), empty the "documents and settings" directory and mount back the
partition to it. Change the path values back and reboot.

So: yes, you can log in and as most admin tools are in the windows directory
you can even repair it without rescue disk. Again, it shouldn't happen!

The files on another partition has already come in handy when adding a new
hd for space. Just leave the system on the old drive (as long as the new disk
isn't much faster) and mount a new disk in place of the old one. No hassle
with new path values and completely transparent to all programs. By the way
that's one reasons why Linux does it that way. So Microsoft *hint* *hint*,
how about leaving DOS-age drive letters behind? They are not needed anymore.

Btw. I did the same on win7. Unfortunately it didn't get any easier as
Microsoft decided to crosslink/hardlink/whatever many directories (show all
hidden files and see the mess!), but it is still possible.

A system on a 1TB bulk hd is slow. Holiday videos and a music collection on
a SSD is a waste. So, Microsoft - yes, talking to you again - how about
making it easier for everyone and giving this option at install time, like
every Linux distro does? (you are used to copying, so why not start copying
some useful things ;-) )
 
PigLover said:
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?
Click to expand...

Ok, this is an old thread. But still as I have used this method with XP and
now with 7 (don't know about vista) I have some experience with "failing". I
started this, because defragging (back then defragging maybe really had an
effect ;-) ) took a very long time for the whole drive (had cygwin installed,
which has tons of small files). And I also thought it would have performance
advantages and I btw. liked it, how most Linux distros did this by default.

So I first moved cygwin to it's own partition and mounted it back to the
original location (this was easy because all open references could be closed
while running windows).

Then I moved the whole apps folder to another partition. This was a little
bit harder, because I had to "kill" some programs/drivers that were always
accessing their folder. cygwin was still on it's own partition mounted in a
mounted folder ;-)

Some time later when the hd got full, I started by moving the "my documents"
folder ("Eigene Dateien" in the German version I use) just by using setting
another path. Which of course broke some programs (and the file history of
every program) because they still tried to use the path from install time.

So I took the hard step to mount a partition in the original place. I used
backup and restore to copy the whole "document and settings" folders contents
to another temp folder and changed all the ProfileList path variables in the
registry to the new value (they want be used until a reboot). After a reboot
I could move the contents of "documents and settings" to an empty partition.
Now that this folder would be empty, i could mount this partition back to
"document and settings". Back to the registry changing back the path values,
then a reboot and all was done!

Now for the failing: somehow it happend 3 times that the partition would get
unmounted (always after uninstalling some programs, which had older
uninstallers). I don't know how XP would even allow this. This should not be
able to happen, Microsoft!! In more than 10 years using Linux I never had a
problem with partitions.

Nevertheless it is noticeable immediately because e. g. the desktop is empty
or the start menu doesn't work anymore, although it took me nearly half an
hour to figure out what the problem was the first time it happend. I even did
a reboot and could log in but was greeted with many errors of nonexisting
files/folders aso. If this is the case you can't mount back the partition,
because windows will already have created files that are in use in the now
real "documents and settings" folder.

The solution: assign a drive letter do the partition (it's a good idea to
keep it in addition to the mount point) and change the profile path values in
the registry to reflect the change. Reboot (everything should look normal
already), empty the "documents and settings" directory and mount back the
partition to it. Change the path values back and reboot.

So: yes, you can log in and as most admin tools are in the windows directory
you can even repair it without rescue disk. Again, it shouldn't happen!

The files on another partition has already come in handy when adding a new
hd for space. Just leave the system on the old drive (as long as the new disk
isn't much faster) and mount a new disk in place of the old one. No hassle
with new path values and completely transparent to all programs. By the way
that's one reasons why Linux does it that way. So Microsoft *hint* *hint*,
how about leaving DOS-age drive letters behind? They are not needed anymore.

Btw. I did the same on win7. Unfortunately it didn't get any easier as
Microsoft decided to crosslink/hardlink/whatever many directories (show all
hidden files and see the mess!), but it is still possible.

A system on a 1TB bulk hd is slow. Holiday videos and a music collection on
a SSD is a waste. So, Microsoft - yes, talking to you again - how about
making it easier for everyone and giving this option at install time, like
every Linux distro does? (you are used to copying, so why not start copying
some useful things ;-) )
 
PigLover said:
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?
Click to expand...

Ok, this is an old thread. But still as I have used this method with XP and
now with 7 (don't know about vista) I have some experience with "failing". I
started this, because defragging (back then defragging maybe really had an
effect ;-) ) took a very long time for the whole drive (had cygwin installed,
which has tons of small files). And I also thought it would have performance
advantages and I btw. liked it, how most Linux distros did this by default.

So I first moved cygwin to it's own partition and mounted it back to the
original location (this was easy because all open references could be closed
while running windows).

Then I moved the whole apps folder to another partition. This was a little
bit harder, because I had to "kill" some programs/drivers that were always
accessing their folder. cygwin was still on it's own partition mounted in a
mounted folder ;-)

Some time later when the hd got full, I started by moving the "my documents"
folder ("Eigene Dateien" in the German version I use) just by using setting
another path. Which of course broke some programs (and the file history of
every program) because they still tried to use the path from install time.

So I took the hard step to mount a partition in the original place. I used
backup and restore to copy the whole "document and settings" folders contents
to another temp folder and changed all the ProfileList path variables in the
registry to the new value (they want be used until a reboot). After a reboot
I could move the contents of "documents and settings" to an empty partition.
Now that this folder would be empty, i could mount this partition back to
"document and settings". Back to the registry changing back the path values,
then a reboot and all was done!

Now for the failing: somehow it happend 3 times that the partition would get
unmounted (always after uninstalling some programs, which had older
uninstallers). I don't know how XP would even allow this. This should not be
able to happen, Microsoft!! In more than 10 years using Linux I never had a
problem with partitions.

Nevertheless it is noticeable immediately because e. g. the desktop is empty
or the start menu doesn't work anymore, although it took me nearly half an
hour to figure out what the problem was the first time it happend. I even did
a reboot and could log in but was greeted with many errors of nonexisting
files/folders aso. If this is the case you can't mount back the partition,
because windows will already have created files that are in use in the now
real "documents and settings" folder.

The solution: assign a drive letter do the partition (it's a good idea to
keep it in addition to the mount point) and change the profile path values in
the registry to reflect the change. Reboot (everything should look normal
already), empty the "documents and settings" directory and mount back the
partition to it. Change the path values back and reboot.

So: yes, you can log in and as most admin tools are in the windows directory
you can even repair it without rescue disk. Again, it shouldn't happen!

The files on another partition has already come in handy when adding a new
hd for space. Just leave the system on the old drive (as long as the new disk
isn't much faster) and mount a new disk in place of the old one. No hassle
with new path values and completely transparent to all programs. By the way
that's one reasons why Linux does it that way. So Microsoft *hint* *hint*,
how about leaving DOS-age drive letters behind? They are not needed anymore.

Btw. I did the same on win7. Unfortunately it didn't get any easier as
Microsoft decided to crosslink/hardlink/whatever many directories (show all
hidden files and see the mess!), but it is still possible.

A system on a 1TB bulk hd is slow. Holiday videos and a music collection on
a SSD is a waste. So, Microsoft - yes, talking to you again - how about
making it easier for everyone and giving this option at install time, like
every Linux distro does? (you are used to copying, so why not start copying
some useful things ;-) )
 
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