Vista user folder

[Kent88]

In XP, user files are stored in Mydocuments, which can be moved by changing
the location. I used to change the location to my D: so that i wont lost my
files each time i reinstall my XP.

But in Vista, i cant find the Location button by right-click Properties. I
have to change the Location for each folder (Music, Picture, Contact etc)
one by one.

Is that the only way in Vista?

Kent

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

I think this offers all the info you need:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/107990-personal-user-shell-folders-move-location.html

Be sure to read the entire article and comments to the end. And save it for
future reference. You're going to need it.

 

[Kent88]

From the description in the forum, it seems that i still have to move the
location one by one for each folder (Music, contact etc.) instead of the
whole user shell folder.
Im not sure because I cant see the screen snap shot even after i sign in to
this vista64 forum.

I would like to stress i wish to move the entire user shell folder ONCE.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

The short answer is you can't. You need to move the individual data folders
separately as, unlike XP, they are not all housed under one common data (My
Documents) folder. Each user data folder is a separate entity immediately
under the %userprofile%.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

The entire %userprofile% folder is what he wants to move, intact. That is
what the article describes doing. I am personally going to perform the
operation today, just to see how well it behaves, though in most cases I
would split it up to a couple or three different partitions, anyway. I've
set up one that way for another person, but it seems to misbehave a lot. Not
certain if that's mostly Vista or mostly user error, or what. For instance,
Windows Live Messenger writes its Contacts info to %userprofile%\Contacts,
not to the location I moved the user's Contacts folder to, thus there is a
perpetual second folder in the virtual listing of the user's folders under
Desktop in Explorer.)

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

I can only say that I just now signed up for the site, that it appears from
the way things are written that it takes a while for the Administrators to
review the application and grant full privileges. Until then, I can't know
what's up with the screen shots. I am also going to perform the procedure
myself, today, in order to see how it works. Do that and then install a
bunch of apps, most of them rather older. Should provide a decent test, but
if you're going to wait on me, don't expect any reports for several days.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

To see the images, sign in. Site registration requires that you receive an
email accepting your application and that you activate the account using a
link provided in the email. When that's done, start over with the link I
gave you, sign in at the upper left and the images simply appear. No links
to deal with.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

The entire %userprofile% folder is what he wants to move, intact. That is
what the article describes doing.

No, it doesn't. It only describes how to move the contained User Shell
Folders. Moving the whole %userprofile% folder is a hell of a lot more
involved than that, and in my opinion, not recommended.

For instance, Windows Live Messenger writes its Contacts info to
%userprofile%\Contacts, not to the location I moved the user's Contacts
folder to, thus there is a perpetual second folder in the virtual listing
of the user's folders under Desktop in Explorer.)

That would be easily sorted with a hidden Junction Point. This is some of
an earlier post of mine, which is related to all this:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
As %userprofile% contains the HKCU hive of the registry, you cannot move it
very easily. Without using Roaming User Profiles, you can do it with a lot
of registry editing, but I would expect that it would cause big problems if
the drive is unavailable to the OS for whatever reason. Here's a guy who
has manage to do it:

http://joshmouch.wordpress.com:80/2007/04/07/change-user-profile-folder-location-in-vista/

I just move the contained User Shell Folders to different drives, and even
network locations in some instances, and leave the User folder itself, where
it is, with the contained user registry hive and %appdata%.

The best way to do this is to move the folders to their new locations (even
network locations) and put hidden Symbolic Links in their places (using the
MKLINK command), pointing to the new locations. This allows you to use the
original addresses as usual, so completely avoids the issue you are having.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Hmmm... After seeing everything one the site I linked to, it apparently
doesn't provide for moving entire %userprofile% folder, but I'm going to try
it, anyway (have to boot away from my main system, first. See ya!

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

To see the images, sign in. Site registration requires that you receive an
email accepting your application and that you activate the account using a
link provided in the email. When that's done, start over with the link I
gave you, sign in at the upper left and the images simply appear. No links
to deal with.

I really do not know why Brink used Program Files as an example, to move the
user shell folders to, as that seems to be a crazy idea, and IIRC, will
cause all sorts of problems with UAC.

ss.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Hmmm... After seeing everything one the site I linked to, it apparently
doesn't provide for moving entire %userprofile% folder, but I'm going to
try it, anyway (have to boot away from my main system, first. See ya!

Heh. Do you have any idea of what is actually in that folder? Like
%appdata% and HKCU? See my other post for the incredibly complex (and
really not worth it) method to move the entire folder.

ss.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Yes, I'm perfectly aware of what's in the folder, and I'm also aware that
it's a complicated issue just moving *some* of the personal folders. But the
question was asked and I'm investigating the issue. I was fooled by the site
I first suggested, because much of the information is missing until you sign
up and log in.

Thank you for the other link and the MKLINK reminder. It was my
understanding that the procedure provided in Vista for relocating those
folders included running MKLINK and leaving a pointer or some equivalent in
the %userprofile% folder. Instead, it apparently only changes Registry
entries (some of them) and does not do a complete job. That figures. After
all, we're talking about Microsoft Windows.

Understand that this is what I do. I test procedures and apps and OSes,
etc., to see how to manage them. I play with all the worst apps or most
difficult procedures just to know how to do them and to learn what the
pitfalls are. As previously noted, I have already moved several personal
folders on one system and it has tended to cause problems. Perhaps your
MKLINK suggestion is I've been looking for. I don't do these things on my
main system (well, yes I do, but with more caution), and it's XP, anyway.
The Vista installation I'm using is a throw-away partition. I need to know
as much about this as I can possibly learn, thus I will try all suggestions
and see which ones work and which don't. And I'll know a lot more in the end
than I do now and can competently suggest possible fixes to people who try
to move the folders (any of them or the whole profile) and run into
problems.

Is that OK with you?

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

I thought the same when I saw that. Ridiculous. The whole idea is to get
User data off of the system partition. I consider Programs Files part of the
System, even if they're located somewhere besides %systemdrive%.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Update: Thus far, the suggested instructions for moving the entire Users
folder appear to work well and result in a stable system, but there's an
awful lot of editing to do by hand and a need to search for various strings,
not just "c:\users" or even "\users". (I wouldn't use something so crude as
find & replace on the Registry. I want to see every edit that is made and
know that it's a proper one to make. There's also Permissions issues to deal
with.)

Don't know that I think it's a good idea, especially if moved to a different
physical drive. I can imagine all kinds of nightmares under that scenario
that would take hours to clean up after.

 

[Apic]

at first i also wished to move the whole vista user folder, but now i only
move the subfolder one by one, as im afraid it will affect other
pre-installed program.
This is because vista user folder also contains system file of others
program, not just user data as in XP Mydocuments.