How to move "users" to another partition?

[faceless]

In addition to moving the progrma files fodler (see my other thread) I would also like to move the whole users folder to another partition.

Hopefully someone can help me out with this too.

[army20]

You have 2 options:

1. You can specify the location for the "users" folders in unattended.xml (also apply to the programs folder)

2. You can do it mannually after windows has been installed.

For the second method, follow theses instructions:

In this example, I'm gonna move the user "Martin" from "C:\users\Martin" to "D:\users\Martin

A. Create the "users" folder on the partition (D:\users\)

B. Create the "Martin" folder in the "users" folder on the partition (D:\users\Martin)

C. Log on as another user with administrative privileges

D. Open Control Pannel

E. Open User Accounts

F. Click on "Configure advanced user profile properties"

G. Select the user profil you want to copy (in this case "Martin") and then click on "Copy to"

H. Specify the new path: D:\users\Martin

I. Log on as "Martin"

J. Open Regedit and go to "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

K. Change all value to their new locations, except for "Fonts"

L. Open Regedit and go to "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Volatile Environment

M. Change all value to their new locations.

[finnish]

hey. you forgot 3rd way:

symbolic links

mklink or mklnk don't quite remember as i'm too sleepy now.

read help on that command and look what's done with Documents&Settings -> Users, You can make Users point to folder Users on another drive. Guess you'll have to boot from WinPE to make it as users folder can be locked..

[army20]

@finnish: That's intresting, maybe you can tell us more about it when you gonna have some time.

[finnish]

mklink
Creates a symbolic link.

MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target

		/D	  Creates a directory symbolic link.  Default is a file
				symbolic link.
		/H	  Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
		/J	  Creates a Directory Junction.
		Link	specifies the new symbolic link name.
		Target  specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link
				refers to.

this way

if i open CMD in C:\USERS and type

mklink /j denis d:\profiles\denis

it will create denis folder in users and i can create such user with name denis and everything will be stored on d:\profiles\denis and system will think of it as it's in c:\users\denis

haven't you noticed how documents & settings folder works in vista it points to c:\users same way i'm telling you about

[dohpaz]

Hi. I just signed up today for this site, and I must say thank you to army20 for his post. I've been searching for a good, clean way to move my user directory to another drive (makes things easier if I ever have to format one drive due to unforeseen circumstances). As perfect as his post was in helping me, I found that if you use the UAC, then you will not easily be able to follow the below step. I had to temporarily disable UAC so that I could access the Copy To option. I just wanted to share this in case someone else who is using UAC tries to do the same thing.

G. Select the user profil you want to copy (in this case "Martin") and then click on "Copy to"

[Prognathous]

I'm about to install Vista and wish to keep Users on a separate partition . Am I correct to assume that the first method (unattended.xml / vLite) would be best? Does it have any cons compared to the other two methods?

Thanks,

Prog.