Change User folder location

[Marthax]

It has been around in XP and has now spread into Vista. I'm talking about the User folder. The thing that bugs me about this isn't that MS assume that everyone's gonna love the "My Documents" structure so much that they're gonna stick with it, it's the fact that they don't give you the option to pick where you want to keep all the stuff. Sure, you can edit the properties of the personal folders to another location, but it doesn't change the fact that your main user folder will still be on the same place where Windows is installed. What if I don't wanna store all my belongings on the same HDD as Windows? What if I don't like the "Users" or "Documents and Settings" folder and wanna change the location of it? Well, then I'm just gonna have to live with it or edit some settings in the registry.

Well, in XP there was a setting where you could change the location of all your "My ..." folders and store them somewhere else. In Vista, I've done the same thing but the main problem still remaines. I want to change the location of the user folder because it really annoyes the crap out of me when the "(My account name)" shortcut in Start-Menu redirects me to %root%\Users\"Some user name" when I really have all my personal folders on another HDD. Which then means that the folders inside User redirect me to the real place.

Does anyone know I change this redirection using the registry?

Thanks in advance!

Marthax

[Stoic Joker]

The profile tab in the user account properties dialog has what you're looking for.

[Marthax]

I don't really understand what I should do here since all I see is a "change type" button and I don't know how that should help me out so you'll have to fill me in.

[kartel]

do you mean this?

[Marthax]

If you're talking to me, then no. I want to change the location of the "Users" folder, and clearly that won't do it for me. Unless there is a variable that can be added to the environment variables to redirect the user folder. And I don't me the AppData folder.

Edited December 7, 2006 by Marthax

[Spooky]

Microsoft just released a new SyncToy (version 1.4 I think) power toy for Vista that lets you do just what you want to do. Might help you out.

[sangwooksohn]

1. Go to C:\User\Your Account Name\

2. Right click Document and choose property

3. Go to Location(?) Tab (I'm using Korean version of Vista so this may not be what it says in English, but you get the idea).

4. Change wherever you want to make Document to be redirected.

[BLeU]

Marthax, I know a simple way to move those folders wihout having to mess with those settings..I've successfully moved my "Documents and Settings" folder along with "Program Files" folder which previously located in my system partition to another partition, D: If you use NTFS file system on your hard disk, then you can create NTFS junctions in your system partition that point to the new location of those folders..use this sysinternal's command line tool : Junction to create those junctions..If you have bartpe or WinPE, you can include the tool on the cd. Simply boot from the cd..the whole process isnt really complicated..once you in there, first thing to do is to move the "Documents and Settings" folder located in C: to the new location, say D: When you're done, then create an empty folder named "Documents and Settings" in C: Next we gonna create a junction..

Usage: junction <junction directory> [<junction target>]

So in this case, the correct command should be junction "C:\Documents and Settings" "D:\Documents and Settings"

that's it..reboot your computer and then you are all done..everytime windows refers to C:\Documents and Settings it will jump to D:\Documents and Settings..When you create a ntfs junction for the folder, there will be 2 possible paths to the folder..in this case, they are C:\Documents and Settings & D:\Documents and Settings which both are valid..

p/s: sorry for my bad english..

[Marthax]

I really appreciate your reply BLeU and that really seems as an really great solution to it, but the thing is that I cannot juction the personal folder because it contains a lot of hidden files, which refuse to be moved. If I try, it just looks like a bug because Vista doesn't respond. If I try to delete them, I get "used file". I don't want to move the entire folder, just the one for my account as I don't care about the rest (I only have one account on my comp). Any ideas on what to do next?

[BLeU]

of course it's impossible to move the folder while you are in Windows environment because the folder is being used by the os so no wonder you ended up getting a bunch of those error messages..that's why I boot my computer off BartPE/WinPE cd which allows me to get full access to my hard disk the same way as I boot from Windows installed on hard disk, and then moved the folder to another partition. maybe you want to consider getting yourself BartPE cd first before re trying it again..but you need to build the cd on XP machine though because the builder program as far as I know wont run on Vista..

Edited December 8, 2006 by BLeU

[Spooky]

See the Vista Tweaks and Tips section for the TakeOwn command line utility in Vista at:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&amp...st&p=578742

After you take ownership you'll be able to do anything you want with it.

I really appreciate your reply BLeU and that really seems as an really great solution to it, but the thing is that I cannot juction the personal folder because it contains a lot of hidden files, which refuse to be moved. If I try, it just looks like a bug because Vista doesn't respond. If I try to delete them, I get "used file". I don't want to move the entire folder, just the one for my account as I don't care about the rest (I only have one account on my comp). Any ideas on what to do next?

[Marthax]

I tried the takeown method, but I still get the same treatment. Vista doesn't respond if I try to cut the folder out and move it to another location. I used the takeown program to give me permissions to all files inside the folder.

This is really frustrating, is it this hard to change the location of the folder? Man MS hasn't thought this through..

What if I did an reformat and during the setup executed the junction prog. Would that work?

[Spooky]

Before you do anything rash...lets try this...

1. Log in on your actual 'Administrator' account (not a user with admin privilages). Before we continue with the below lets open up 'Adminstrative Tools' in the control panel and make sure the user you want to normally log in on is in the 'Administrators' group.

2. Open up explorer and right click on the 'C:\" drive and coose 'Properties' then click on the 'Security' tab.

3. then click on the 'Advanced' button, on the GUI that comes up click on the 'Owner' tab.

4. Change the current owner to 'Administrators' (not 'Administrator' - not the 's') you will be changing the owner to the 'Administrators' group (not the user 'Administrator').

See if gaining control of the whole 'C:\' drive does it for you.

[Marthax]

Get this. Now it says, "copying" and calculates the time, but then it just stops just as if it's been done already without having accomplished anything

Edited December 9, 2006 by Marthax

[Ghostie]

Marthax

There is a registry solution to this problem. I used it in my xp unattended installation to do exactly what you are trying to accomplish. I checked in vista and the entries are still in the same place. You will have to change the entries a bit since the folders are called by different names in vista but here is an example of how I did it.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders]

"Personal"="D:\\Mine\\My Docs"

"My Pictures"="D:\\Mine\\My Docs\\My Pictures"

"My Music"="D:\\Mine\\My Docs\\My Music"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DocFolderPaths]

"Administrator"="D:\\Mine\\My Docs"

Happy tweaking

Need more help, feel free to pm me and I can send you the actual registry file I used.

Edited December 10, 2006 by Ghostie