How do I move Documents and Settings in Windows XP Pro?

[microsoft news]

I want to move all my data files off of C: and onto D:. If I could just move
the Documents and Settings tree that would be great.

But how?

Is this what folder redirection is supposed to do? I tried to find folder
redirection in what I think is the Group Policy dialog (gpedit.msc(??)) but
it's not there.

After a couple of hours of poking around, I'm getting nowhere, and I'm more
than a little frustrated.

Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Hell, just point me at a good
book, the Help and Support is just totally obscure.

/Onewa

 

[Nathan Haigh]

I don't think you can simply move the Documents and Settings tree somewhere
else! What you want is to move special folders (shell folders), it may be
that moving the 'my documents' folders is sufficient, and you may want to
move the 'favourites' folder. Other special folders mainly contain program
data that probably won't need to be moved.

To move the 'my documents' folder, log in to the user account, right click
the 'my documents' folder on the desktop, select properties, click the
'move' button and navigate to where you want to move the folder to.
NOTE:
make sure you include 'my documents' at the end of the path!! It will also
help to include the username in the path so you can find each users 'my
documents' easily. I'm not sure how you move the 'favourites'
folders...check this page out fr indepth details:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_shell_folders.htm

if you are going to try to move most of the shell folders in 'Documents and
Settings', I would if you can make an image of your drive incase something
goes wrong....because if it does....it will go spectacularly wrong! i'd
stick to moving the 'my documents' and favourites folders unless you really
want to move the other shell folders.

Nathan

 

[microsoft news]

Thanks Nathan,

But I think that trick seems to only applies to the My Documents folder. I
don't see how I can move the shared documents folder, or temp, or
application data. I'd also have to tweak My Documents for every user. Maybe
I don't want to or can't move Documents and Settings, but there's a lot of
stuff in there that I want off of C:.

I get the impression that policies and perhaps other bits of the management
stuff will automagically set users up in a different place. Sigh, I'll
probably have to buy a $60, 2" think computer book.

Thanks again

/Onea

 

[Sebastiaan Vroomen]

Ever tried it with sysprep? You'll need to do a fresh
install of windows XP and use sysprep to do this
unattended.

There is a line in unattend.txt:
profilesdir=d:\documents and settings

or something like that. It works for us, but now i don't
remember exactly how it was done.

(nice documentation huh?)

Gr Sebas