ugly folders$ in my partition

[mraeryceos]

I have done the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders]
"Personal"="d:\\"
"Desktop"="d:\\backup\\windows\\desktop"
"AppData"="d:\\backup\\windows\\application data"
"Start Menu"="d:\\backup\\windows\\start menu"
"Programs"="d:\\backup\\windows\\start menu\\programs"
"Startup"="d:\\backup\\windows\\start menu\\programs\\startup"
"NetHood"="d:\\backup\\windows\\nethood"
"SendTo"="d:\\backup\\windows\\sendto"
"Favorites"="d:\\backup\\windows\\favorites"
"Local AppData"="d:\\backup\\windows\\local settings\\application data"
"My Pictures"="d:\\photos"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders]
"Common Start Menu"="d:\\backup\\windows\\start menu"
"Common Programs"="d:\\backup\\windows\\start menu\\programs"
"Common Startup"="d:\\backup\\windows\\start menu\\programs\\startup"
"Personal"="d:\\"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders]
"Startup"=hex(2):64,00,3a,00,5c,00,62,00,61,00,63,00,6b,00,75,00,70,00,5c,00,\
  77,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00,77,00,73,00,5c,00,73,00,74,00,61,00,72,00,74,\
  00,20,00,6d,00,65,00,6e,00,75,00,5c,00,70,00,72,00,6f,00,67,00,72,00,61,00,\
  6d,00,73,00,5c,00,73,00,74,00,61,00,72,00,74,00,75,00,70,00,00,00
"Appdata"=hex(2):64,00,3a,00,5c,00,62,00,61,00,63,00,6b,00,75,00,70,00,5c,00,\
  77,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,6f,00... and even more ugly numbers...
same stuff but only readable by the registry editor

You could also use a "reg expand sz" value and %username% for the default user profile, so you have all user documents mapped to a different partition than the system.

Anyway, I was hoping someone could help me with some unwanted folders that start showing up in my d:\ partition, for example: D:\computername$\application data\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\My\Certificates, or D:\Local Service\..., or D:\Network Service\...

How do I get rid of this? Can Windows work without the entire "certificates" component? Doesn't sound like anything of importance. Nuhi?

[Mordac85]

I take it you're trying to move your profile to a different location from the default? This ain't the way. From a different admin account, try changing HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\<your SID>\ProfileImagePath to the folder you want to move your profile to then copy it there from the System Properties applet.

[mraeryceos]

Cool, I didn't know about that, but, I actually don't want to move the entire profile, just certain folders within the profile that I think are valuable. That works, but I get those folders reappearing every once in a while, that should be in "C:\documents and settings" rather than D:\

[Mordac85]

If you don't move the entire profile that will happen from time to time. But, fwiw, the easier solution is to just move the entire profile so all your settings and docs are in one place and not strewn about haphazardly. I normally do this so I can blow away the main partition and reload the OS w/o messing with backing up my data. Just log back in once and edit the registry and I'm back in business as if nothing ever happened. But whatever works for you, there's just no way around your issue, that I know of, the way you're doing it now.

[mraeryceos]

This halfway worked for me. EfsConfiguration set to 1 below will disable "Encrypted File System" and thus automatic generation of folder paths including "systemcertificates" will NOT be created. DisableDomainCreds tweak below had no effect on killing folder paths including "credentials".

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\EFS]
"EfsConfiguration"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa]
"DisableDomainCreds"=dword:00000001

This is my personal rig. For machines that need multiple profiles, I do the same as in my original post (first post above), but I make the paths as the following example shows:

"Personal"=hex(2):64,00,3a,00,5c,00,25,00,75,00,73,00,65,00,72,00,6e,00,61,00,\
  6d,00,65,00,25,00,5c,00,6d,00,79,00,20,00,64,00,6f,00,63,00,75,00,6d,00,65,\
  00,6e,00,74,00,73,00,00,00

This binary crap stands for something like:

d:\%username%\my documents

where %username% "expands" to the current person logged in.

Edited August 19, 2008 by mraeryceos

[mraeryceos]

Does anyone know of any problems that the average home user may encounter by "disabling storage of authentication credentials and .NET passwords on the local system"? What are those things used for? Also what are "system certificates" used for?

Edit...

From http://www.passcape.com/network_credentials_screenshots.htm

The recovery of passwords stored in Windows Credentials Manager. Those inude passwords for accessing other computers within your LAN, Exchange server's e-mail passwords, .NET Passport accounts in MSN Messenger, Internet Explorer 7 Wininet credentials, etc. Physically all of these passwords are stored in the file C:\Documents and Settings\%USER%\Application Data\Microsoft\Credentials\%SID%\Credentials and decrypted using DPAPI.

Edited August 19, 2008 by mraeryceos

[CoffeeFiend]

This binary crap

hex -> hexadecimal

(2) is for a REG_EXPAND_SZ i.e. Expand String, which has a value of 2 (others: String = 1, Binary = 3, DWord = 4, MultiString = 7, QWord = 11)

: self-explanatory

64,00,3a,00,5c,...,73,00,00,00 is the text/hexadecimal representation of unicode string (zero terminated)

Just sayin' ...

Also, it would be trivial to make an app to translate from one form to another (hex/unicode string).

Edit: an app like this one

I'll post it later if there's any interest...

Edited July 30, 2008 by crahak

[mraeryceos]

I like it! To be more useful, I would prefer a reg file editor. Right click on reg file and choose edit, and instead of notepad, you get crahak's reg file editor. There you get to see everything in your native language, and if you want, click on a toggle button to show the original file. When you type in or copy/paste new registry values in your language, saving the file converts this to: 64,00,3a,00,5c,00,25,00,75,... or whatever it needs to be.

Edited July 30, 2008 by mraeryceos

[CoffeeFiend]

To be more useful, I would prefer a reg file editor. Right click on reg file and choose edit, and instead of notepad, you get crahak's reg file editor. There you get to see everything in your native language, and if you want, click on a toggle button to show the original file.

That's a great idea actually. Good enough that one could probably sell an app to do this (it would be useful to a LOT of admins out there). Not that I would charge for it, just saying it's the kind of idea most developers wish they had more often. I'll be looking into that for sure!

The other option would be to handle the conversions and to make use of an external editor of your choice (which would likely be a better text editor, e.g. notepad++) instead of a sucky built-in editor (convert .reg file from hex to unicode, save as temp file, generate SHA1 hash of it, spawn editor, wait for the editor process to quit, if hash is the same just quit, if hash has changed, convert it back to hex and overwrite the .reg file)

Edited July 30, 2008 by crahak

[CoffeeFiend]

Right click on reg file and choose edit, and instead of notepad, you get crahak's reg file editor. There you get to see everything in your native language

See this. It does mostly what you were asking for