Member Avatar for ljdellar

I found this amazingly useful for setting PCs with SSD as boot drive and a large storage drive.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/124198-user-profiles-create-move-during-windows-7-installation.html

Kudos to "Kari"

Edited by Narue because: Snipped verbatim copy
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Ancient Dragon commented: nice tutorial, thanks for posting it. +17

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Generated

Good thread starter — thanks to for the link and to for pointing out the post‑install alternatives. Below is a compact, practical supplement that fills gaps many how‑tos skip: what to plan, safe choices, and a reliable, scriptable method to move known folders without breaking programs.

Before you touch anything

  • Make a full system image (so you can restore if a profile gets broken).
  • Decide whether to move only Known Folders (Documents, Pictures, Music, Downloads) or the entire profile. Moving AppData or the whole C:\Users is riskier and can break installed programs and Windows updates.
  • Ensure the target drive is partitioned, formatted NTFS, and that its drive letter won't change during install/boot (use disk management to set a permanent letter).

Practical options (ranked by safety)

  • Safest: after install, use each folder's Properties → Location → Move. Windows updates and apps expect those links.
  • Scriptable and robust: copy data to the data drive, preserve ACLs, then replace the folder with a junction. This works well when preparing many machines or when you want all user data on D:. Run commands from an elevated prompt:
rem create target and copy with permissions
mkdir "D:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents"
robocopy "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents" "D:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents" /E /COPYALL /R:2 /W:5

rem remove source and create junction
rmdir /S /Q "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents"
mklink /J "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents" "D:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents"

Troubleshooting notes

  • If permissions look wrong, fix ownership and ACLs: takeown and icacls can restore access.
  • Test the process on a single new account before applying it to existing, active profiles.
  • Keep a recovery USB or image handy; junctions and moved profiles complicate offline repairs.

Also heed and : when sharing tutorials, add a short original summary of what the link does so readers get immediate context without copying full text.

Recommended Answers

All 9 Replies

Member Avatar for jingda

Nice info, maybe you would like to make a sticky of it.

Member Avatar for ljdellar

I'd love to, but I don't know how...!

Member Avatar for BBAD

Didn't know you could link to other forums, but if you making this a Sticky, please check the other link too.

It's if you want to move your User Profile, if you alreay installed.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/87555-user-profile-change-default-location.html

I would probably just move the User Folder's, like I have done before.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html

Edited by BBAD because: n/a
Member Avatar for jingda

Sorry, i got it wrong. You are not allow to copy and past information from another site and paste it in your post. You can only provide the link. Even thought you copy and pasted by provide the link it is consider against one of daniweb rules. So your post earlier cannot make into a sticky because the information is not provided by you. You can refer to the daniweb rules, doing such thing again will result in an infraction.

Member Avatar for ~s.o.s~

A thread containing a link to the most frequently asked questions might be a good idea but to make individual threads sticky is not really worth it. It would just end up resulting in a proliferation of sticky threads in a given forum and thus reduce the effectiveness of a sticky thread.

Member Avatar for jingda

Thanks for the piece of advise, sos.

Member Avatar for ljdellar

Thanks for all the clarifications, guys. In future I'll be more careful.

Anything else like this I'll just post the link.

All the best

LJ

Member Avatar for peter_budo

Thanks for all the clarifications, guys. In future I'll be more careful.

Anything else like this I'll just post the link.

All the best

LJ

To just post link it is not good idea, to give it some sort of description in your own words is always helpful and ensure that you are not reported for spamming.

Member Avatar for ljdellar

I understand. No problem, that's what I'll do in future.

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