How can I move my WHOLE User folder to another drive on Windows 10?

I have a bunch of game on my computer on secondary drive and a lot of mods for those games. The path that the games read the mods however can not be changed or else they will not work. This is in where the problems lies. That path is through the users folder which is on my significantly smaller C: drive, so how can I move my user folder to my other dive to solve this problem?

CPU: Intel i7-6700 3.4GHz

256 GB SSD (C: Drive)

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You cannot, but you can redirect the personal folders within your User folder to the larger 1 TB D:\ drive.

Press Windows key + X
Click Disk Management
Could you take a screenshot then post it in a reply here?

If the D: drive is larger than C:, I would try partitioning the drive.

Name one Partition ‘Files’ and the other ‘Apps’.

Open the Files partition, create a folder and name it: BradG813

Press Windows key + R
Type: %userprofile%
Hit Enter

Right click your Documents folder
Click Properties
Select the Location tab
Click Move
Browse to the Files partition we created earlier then select BradG813 folder.

Repeat the same steps for other folders such as Pictures, Videos etc.

Open Start > Settings > System > Storage
Under More storage settings, click ‘Change where new content is saved’

In New apps will save to list box, choose the ‘Apps’ partition we created earlier.

Open Start > Settings > Apps > Apps & Features
Select any large app you have downloaded from the Windows Store
Click Move, choose the ‘Apps’ partition

Note: This is a non-Microsoft website. The page appears to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the site that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the site before you decide to download and install it.

Moving the User folder in its entirety from C to D

Is it possible to move User folder (in its entirety) from C to D ?

I know I can move Documents, Music etc, but I want to move the entire folder.

**Post moved by the moderator to the appropriate forum category.**

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I would recommend not doing that. It’s not a simple thing to start with, and it can have some really adverse consequences.

Especially when it comes time for a major update\upgrade.

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Too many unintended and disastrous consequences to move the User Account folder to another drive. Instead just move your active User folders from your User account to the other drive. User Folders — Change Default Location

This keeps C smaller for imaging purposes, but built-in imaging will want to include the data partition since it now has System files. Solution is to use a more flexible imaging app like free and fully automated Macrium Reflect is a Free and Easy To Use Backup Utility which can also restore anywhere instead of the exact same position on disk as per Windows imaging.

Over 100,000 helped in forums for 11 years. I don’t quit for those who are polite and cooperative.

Windows MVP 2010-21

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Appreciate the post but still.

The registry identifies the path to several important folder using %SystemDrive%\Folder_Names.

If you introduce another global variable say, %SystemDataDrive% you could then use %SystemDataDrive%\Users and %SystemDataDrive%\ProgramData etc.

All that would be required to move these folders would be one simple edit to the registry. I fully appreciate that other installed programs might hard-code the user folder which would result in problems but these are easily addressed.

A shame really, I could greatly reduce the size of the SSD required to run Windows 10 if I could relocate a few more folders to my regular hard-drive.

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Fortunately SSD’s are coming down in cost.

I run Windows 10 x64 with a ton of installed programs on a 128GB SSD. it is currently about half full. But most of that us actually unused space taken up by the Hibefil.sys and PageFile.sys. 12.5gb and 16.5gb respectively. The pagefile can be resized if needed, and the hiberfil turned off. But I wouldn’t do that either.

I relocate Documents, Pictures, Videos, Downloads, and similar to a different drive kind of like what has been mentioned.

BTW. If you check at the specs for SSDs you will find that the larger 512gb and up drives have higher write speed than the smaller ones, and possibly faster read speeds as well.

You may be defeating the benefit of a SSD to a certain degree by trying to use as small of one as possible.

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While I enjoy the extra speed afforded by SSD’d, I didn’t buy it just for the speed increase, I bought it because it had the potential to outlast your average mechanical hard-drive, but as everyone one knows, SSD’s have one major weakness and that’s the number of write cycles before degradation set in.

It therefore follows, if I can reduce the number of write cycles (by moving files and folders that are constantly changing to a regular drive), I can have the best of both worlds.

While there is an argument that moving the data files/folders to a regular drive would have no appreciable difference in the overall life of an SSD’s (I am yet to be convinced), it certainly wouldn’t do any harm either. besides I favor the separation of data and executable in much the same was as I favor the separation of the operation system from all other programs.

I guess when SSD’d memory cells have a half-life of plutonium, I’ll be happy. well either that or my OS comes in ROM 😉

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I actually tried pretty much what you are proposing at one time.

It turned out to be WAY to big of a PITA.

It causes problems with upgrades, some program functions, and other stuff.

I finally just did the normal User folders like Documents and etc.

Mostly because it make my images smaller, not because of wear and tear.

In reality, one of the more frequent processes doing writes to your SSD is the SwapFile, PageFile, and HiberFil processes. I actually moved those as well, which was less of a problem than moving the Users folder.

My current Crucial SSD is 2 1/2 years old and has used 3\4’s of it’s 72TBs of writes, and no signs of issues. The life expectancy of the newer SSDs is equal or greater than a lot of the lower cost HDDs.

I have another machine with a Corsair SSD that is 5 1\2 years old, that has withstood countless reimaging overwrites without any sign of problems.

I actually paid $50 more for the 120GB Corsair 5 1\2 years ago than I paid for the 512GB Crucial 2 1\2 years ago, and the price has dropped more since.

To me, a SSD has become a throwaway item. It is not worth the trouble to try to Extend it’s life with all of the imaging, and reloading of images I do with Win 7, 8\8.1, and 10. all on the same machine.

It’s entirely up to you what you decide in the end, and I have no problem if you have a different perspective. It’s your machine.

Just thought I would provide my experience and thoughts on the subject.

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I agree with your «wear leveling» concerns with an SSD. I have my OS on one and moved a number of high volume write directories off the SSD to a «platter» hard drive.

I did this using the «MKLink /J» command to create directory junctions from the SSD to HD. There are a ton of articles available that detail the specifics of how to accomplish. I’ve relocated the Windows User, Temp, System32/winevt, and Software Distribution folders from the SSD on which Windows is installed to my platter HD. I’ve done this with Windows 7 and Windows 10. I’ve had zero issues. Naturally, the migration from 7 to 10 required redoing the mklinks.

I set things up by booting from Windows PE. The biggest issue was having to use a DiskPart prompt to change the Windows PE bogus drive letters to the ones I used. After fixing the drive letters, I run a batch script to move the directories and define the directory junctions.

Naturally, I would strongly recommend that you take an image of your OS partition prior to tweaking. I use Acronis.

Doing the above does require decent computer skills, but you don’t have to be a wizard to do so.

How to move the special folders in Windows Vista

· Published Nov 28, 2006

Introduction

This article describes how to move the special folders in Windows® Vista.

Moving the special folders

Windows Vista lets you easily relocate the shell folder paths for Documents, Music and Pictures folder using the Property sheet. Note that in Windows XP, selectively moving the My Pictures or the My Music folders required a registry edit. This is no longer the case in Vista.

Method 1 USELESS

To move a special folder to a different drive or path, follow these steps:

· Create the destination folder first

· Click the Start button

· Right-click the special folder (Documents, Music, or Pictures) and choose Properties

· Select the Location tab

· Click Move and select the target folder

· Click Yes when you’re prompted to move the files to new location

The shell folder is now moved to the new location.

Method 2: Using Registry Editor

To accomplish this using Registry editor, follow these steps:

· Create the destination folder first

· Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe

· For per-user special folders, navigate to the following location:

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

· For per-system special folders, navigate to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ User Shell Folders

· Double-click the corresponding shell folder name

· Change the Value data accordingly, mentioning the destination path

Default shell folder paths — Listing

Per-user special folders

Value name (Special folder)

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files

Per-system special folders

Value name (Special folder)

Common Start Menu

To reset the shell folder paths for Music/Documents/Pictures/Videos folders in Windows Vista, you may use the REG file reset_music_pictures_docs_path.reg . Download and save the file to the Desktop. Right-click on the file and choose Merge.

How can I move the «users» folder.

Is there an easy way to move the user folder off the system drive? I understand the concept of virtual folders, but when i drag and drop a file from my desktop to my «Matthew» folder i have displayed on the desktop, it goes to c:\Users\Matthew I want my Users folder on my E:\ drive (e:\users\matthew) Even better would be if i could have «c:\users» just be «e:\»

Re: How can I move the «users» folder. Need it off the C: drive.

If you want to re-direct all your user data folders in one shot, you essentially have two options:

1. You can use unattend.xml (i believe there is a blog post on this) during setup to define exactly where you want your Profile ‘Users’ directory to be created. All new profiles will be created at that location.

2. You can also individually redirect all your profile folders using the following method if you already have the OS installed. However one thing to point out is that once you have the OS installed, you cannot move the root profile folder, i.e. Users directory or the username folder itself.

1. Go to the Start>Username folder.

2. Select all the folders in the explorer window you want to move/re-direct.

3. Cut-paste them to the new location of your choosing .

This will also redirect all the folders to the new location and update the registry entries for them as well in a manner similar to the manual redirection via the locations tab as suggested above.

Actually, there IS a way to move existing profiles and the profiles root directory, although I’m sure it’s unsupported, use at your own risk, etc.

The key HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList includes a value for the ProfilesDirectory that points to the root profile directory (i.e. %SystemDrive%\Users), and each subkey represents the location of a single profile, identified by account SID. User profiles don’t all have to be under the root profile directory, but the Default and All Users profiles do. Newly copied profiles (either from default or roaming) go into the root profile directory.

Don’t try to move a profile that’s in use. Changes to the profile root directory only take effect properly after reboot.

Even if you move the profile, there MIGHT be paths that lead to the old directory (although this isn’t supposed to be happening to support roaming profiles correctly; romaing profiles may be located anywhere when cached on the client machines).

Wow. That registry trick works awesome. Thats exactly what i needed. Now my e:\ drive has Users, Documents, Images, Videos, Music , and Downloads folders, with the virtual folders under ‘e:\Users\Matthew’ and ‘e:\Users\Ashley’ linking back out to thier respective folder in the root directory (e:\)

All this so when my ‘ Matthew’ folder is displayed on the desktop, i can drag and drop files to it and they physically reside at e:\Users\Matthew. From there further sorting into the Virtual folders is easy.

We provide an unattend setting (Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup | FolderLocations | ProfilesDirectory) for doing exactly this! I would recommend applying this setting during a clean install. But beware — if you move the Users folder to a location other than the system volume, upgrades will be blocked.

A description of known issues with the FolderLocation settings in the Windows Vista Unattend.xml file http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929831

You can use the FolderLocations settings in the «Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup» area of the Windows Vista Unattend.xml file to move the user profiles folder or the program data folder to a non-default target location. The user profiles folder is typically %systemdrive%\Users. The program data folder is typically %systemdrive%\ProgramData.

This article describes known issues with the FolderLocations settings in the Unattend.xml file.

The target location for the user profiles and program data folders can be on a volume other than the system drive as long as the volume meets the following requirements:

It must be an NTFS file system volume.

It must not be the path of another operating system user profile folder or program data folder.

It must not contain any serviceable components.

These unattend settings have the following known issues:

If you use the FolderLocations unattend settings to move user data or program data to a location other than the %systemdrive% folder, you block upgrades to other versions of Windows Vista or to later releases of Microsoft Windows.

If you use the System Preparation Tool (Sysprep) to apply the FolderLocations unattend settings, some system directory junctions do not point to the new target location. The following system directory junctions continue to point to the old locations:

C:\Documents and Settings continues to point to C:\Users.

C:\ProgramData\Desktop continues to point to C:\Users\Public\Desktop.

C:\ProgramData\Documents continues to point to C:\Users\Public\Documents.

C:\ProgramData\Favorites continues to point to C:\Users\Public\Favorites.

If you use the Windows Vista Setup program to apply the FolderLocations unattend settings, the system directory junctions do not point to the new target location. The following system directory junctions continue to point to the old locations:

C:\Documents and Settings continues to point to C:\Users.

C:\Users\Default User continues to point to C:\Users\Default.

C:\Users\All Users continues to point to C:\ProgramData.

If you use the System Preparation Tool to apply the ProfilesDirectory unattend settings, the user profiles of domain users who have previously logged on to the computer are left in the old location. The public profile is also left in the old location.

The EdBott.com blog advice doesn’t really re-locate the user folder. It only relocates some of the user subfolders (Documents, Music, etc.) It doesn’t work for the hidden user subfolders (like AppData) at all. And it doesn’t move the root folder for the user, so if you click on the username on the Start menu, you’re still taken to the C:\users\username folder.

The same goes for cutting and pasting user subfolders, I believe, as was mentioned in an eariler post.

So far, it looks like the registry change is the way to go. BTW, here is the microsoft KB article that documents that registry hack:

XP RESOLUTION http://support.microsoft.com/kb/236621

To specify a different folder for the «Documents and Settings» folder during installation, follow these steps:

Use the /UNATTEND switch with Winnt.exe or Winnt32.exe and insert the following entry into the Unattend.txt file, where z:\foldername is the path and folder name you want:

Install Windows. The path you included in the Unattend.txt file is used instead of the default «Documents and Settings» folder.

To specify a different folder for the «Documents and Settings» folder after you install Windows for a particular user, follow these steps:

1. Identify the user’s profile path. There are two methods to identify the profile path. Either by user path settings or user SID. The user SID method is preferred.

User SID method

a. Use the GETSID tool from the Windows Server Resource Kit to obtain the SID. Use syntax similar to the following example:

GETSID \\SERVER1 UserName \\SERVER1 UserName

b. Once you obtain the SID, use Regedit.exe or Regedt32.exe to select the user’s SID under the following registry key:

User path setting

a. Log on to the computer as the user, and then type SET at a command prompt. Note the setting for USERPROFILE, and then close the command prompt window.

b. Log on as an administrator of the computer.

Use Registry Editor to add the USERPROFILE setting to the following registry key:

d. Click the registry key, and then click Find on the Edit menu.

e. In the Find box, type the value of the USERPROFILE setting, and then click Find Next.

2. Change the ProfileImagePath value to use the new path you want in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList registry key.

3. Close Registry Editor, and then log on as the user. Type SET at the command prompt to verify the path has changed.

NOTE : This method relocates key Windows components. Use this method only if you require the «Documents and Settings» folder to be moved or renamed and you cannot use the Unattend.txt file to change the name during installation.

To specify a different folder for the entire «Documents and Settings» folder, including key system components, follow these steps:

Log on to the computer as an administrator.

Create a new folder.

Open the current «Documents and Settings» folder.

On the Tools menu, click Folder Options, and then click the View tab.

Under Advanced settings click Show hidden files and folders, and then click to clear the Hide file extensions for known file types and Hide protected operating system files check boxes.

Click and drag to copy all the folders to the new folder, except for the currently logged on users folder.

In Control Panel, double-click System, and then click the User Profiles tab.

Copy the current user’s profile to the new folder.

Click OK, close Control Panel, and then log off and log on to the computer as an administrator again.

In Registry Editor, click Find on the Edit menu.

Type documents and settings, and then click Find.

Replace the value data or rename the value or registry key to the new path for each and every registry key and value that contains the original path.NOTE: You must complete this change for every instance in the registry or your computer may not start. It is imperative that you update all registry keys and values with the new path.

Restart the computer.

You can now safely remove the original «Documents and Settings» folder.

Note If you search the registry for «Documents and Settings,» you will find a string value in the following subkey: HKLM\system\controlset001\control\hivelist. This string value is \Device\HarddiskVolume#\Documents and Settings. Do not change this string value. After you finish searching for «Documents and Settings,» also search for the short file name «Docume

1.» Change the path for those results.

Here lies my experience moving my entire User Profile folder structure, including Default, Public, and any local users.

In my search for a solution, the only two easy ways I found to move the user profile directory locations from the system drive is to

1. Set the User Profile folder during setup using an unattended install file.
2. Move the individual folders inside your user profile, which can be done using explorer (which will update the registry keys HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders).

However, this was not good enough for me, I wanted my actual user profile folder to be moved to a seperate partition/volume, including registry settings. I discovered that it is not actually that hard, provided you’re comfortable with mass replacing registry keys and values.

Here is how I moved my user profile location. Please note that I wanted all of the profiles moved, included Public and Default, so some of these steps can be skipped if you do not want that:

1. Make sure you have a complete backup of your system!
2. Copy the original Default Profile directory to the new location (e.g. from C:\Users\Default to D:\Users\Default).
3. Copy the original Public Profile directory to the new location (e.g. from C:\Users\Public to D:\Users\Public).
4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.
5. Change the value of the Default key to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users\Default).
6. Change the value of the Public key to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users\Public).
7. Change the value of the ProfilesDirectory to the new user profile location (e.g. D:\Users).
8. At this point, you need to restart and log back in as a different user that has never logged in before and therefore does not have a profile created. In my case, the Administrator user had never logged in before so I enabled it so that Administrator could log in and used that. You can enable Administrator login by loading Computer Management and then go to User Accounts, edit the properties for Administrator, and then uncheck Disable Login.
9. After logging in for the first time with the new user account, you will see “Creating Desktop” and other things like that while Windows is creating your profile. Note that the new profile should be created in the new location.
10. After logging in, try to close as many applications as possible. This will prevent most files from being locked so that you cannot copy them.
11. Copy the entire original user profiles folder from the original location to the new location (e.g. C:\Users\* to D:\Users\). (See next step after copy starts).
12. There are a few things to note during this copy. There were thousands of .TMP files that were locked and would not copy. I just skipped these files. I held down Alt-S so that I could see all of the skipped files and make sure that there were only .TMP files being skipped. Yes, this took a little while, but at least I was confident that I got all of my files copied. This process could probably be made easier using the command prompt or powershell.
13. If, in your case, there are some files that will not copy, you can run procexp.exe, which is file provided by sysinternals. Then do a Find Handle and search for part of the filename. procexp will tell you which programs are locking the file. As long as you closed as many programs as you could, though, this should not happen.
14. Find and download a program that will do a Search & Replace on the registry. I will not suggest one because I did not find one single program that worked perfectly. I ended up downloading a few different freeware applications and using all of them.
15. Using the Registry Search & Replace program, do a search for the original user profile folder and replace it with the new user profile folder (e.g. search for “C:\Users” and replace with “D:\Users”. Note that some of the applications I used would only change values and not key names. However, the keys that needed to be changed were all related to MuiCache. I do not know if these actually need to be updated. I did just to make sure.
16. Log out. Log back in with the same user. Repeat step 14 until there is nothing left to replace. The reason for this step is that on logout, some programs seem to update the registry using the old user profile path.
17. Run regedit.exe and do a search for the original user profile path and make sure it does not exist. The reason for this step is because (as noted in step 13), I did not trust any of the Registry Search & Replace programs I used. I ended up needing to update about a dozen of the keys and values manually, since the search & replace missed them.
18. So that you can easily find programs that do not use the registry and hard-coded profile paths, rename your original profile folder (e.g. rename C:\Users to C:\

Users).

Log out. Log back in as your usual user. Everything should be working correctly except for programs that use a “hardcoded” user profile location.

There are two easy methods that can be used to find programs that use a “hardcoded” profile location and are still looking for the original user profile path. You can use the procexp.exe trick mentioned above and search for handles in the original profile location. You can also monitor the oringal profile location to see if any new folders or files were created. For example, in my case, FolderShare created some folders and files in the directory C:\Users\MyUsername\AppData\Local\FolderShare\. So, I updated the FolderShare settings to point to the different path and then deleted the C:\Users directory (note that C:\

Users still existed as a backup).
Since you are now confident that all of your data has been moved (right. ), you can deleted the backup of the original user profile location (e.g. C:\

This procedure worked flawlessly for me. Everything user-related is now on a completely different volume, and I can sleep a little better at night!

Please reply to my email. I have several ideas on improving your process.
For step 14: Use Resplendence Registry Manager v5.50
Email me for a copy.