Move Users Folder Location in Windows 10  

Boomhauer said:

hey man i appreciate the suggestions but i am no better off for whatever reason i cant figure out. i have done this time and time again and always the same. i haven't done what you suggested yet as i am quite literally at my wits end. i have downloaded WSIM and validated every answer file i have tried all come back no errors but i run it and the same message appears every time. with all of that though i have somehow ended up with 2 administrators user folders, 1 on C:\ and 1 on D:\????? i dont have a clue how or why but i do. i am running 10 pro in uefi mode (csm) not sure if maybe somehow that has anything to do with it all but doesnt seem to effect anything else or the validating of the answer file thru WSIM. i am completely at a loss here as i most times can force my way thru but not this time. i have tried both a clean install and not saving anything done except moving user folder; tried to customize and go with that answer file; and tried to do it from an already up and running system with same results everytime.. i also realized i at times was making a pretty big error but again my mistake included or not it ended with the same message. tried 2 different flash drives 2 different iso's with install.esd converted to install.wim of course. changed the drive letter several times changed the flash drive letter several times. is this something that can be done remotely when trying to do it with an already up and running system? all i care about doing is moving that damn user folder not concerned presently with anything but that. i am going to read thruyours again and see if i can get an understanding of it but i've been upo and at this for couple days now so we will see i guess

Since the error message states that the error is in "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup", that's where you should look.
What time zone are you specifying? The time zone name must be exactly one of the recognized ones; a misspelled time zone name will throw an error.

The Sysprep error log should tell you what the error is. Have you checked it?

If you still can't find the problem, try eliminating the "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" section entirely and see if it works. If so, put things back in a few at a time until it fails, then narrow it down from there. You just might have a problem that WSIM doesn't detect.

SpacemanSam said:

Since the error message states that the error is in "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup", that's where you should look.
What time zone are you specifying? The time zone name must be exactly one of the recognized ones; a misspelled time zone name will throw an error.

The Sysprep error log should tell you what the error is. Have you checked it?

If you still can't find the problem, try eliminating the "Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" section entirely and see if it works. If so, put things back in a few at a time until it fails, then narrow it down from there. You just might have a problem that WSIM doesn't detect.

SpacemanSam, i appreciate you trying to help like you did. even with your answer file i was getting nowhere and i finally figured out why. now i in no way consider myself to be any more intelligent than i actually am nor any smarter than the person next me but i am by far not the dullest knife in the drawer either if you get what i am saying. i followed every iteration of the examples given to the letter and when that did not work i mixed a little of one with the others and sometimes make a little progress and sometimes didnt but also figured out why i didnt or what happened because i did what i did the way i did it. did this time and time again with the same results 99% of the time while at the same time trying to go thru everything i could find online to figure out why it wasnt working. then i stumbled across this, Relocating Users folder – Yes, it is 100% safe! – Win10.Guru. i knew just as soon as i was halfway thru that this was a once and done and i'll be damned if i wasnt right. i even went back and did it 2 more times just so i could positively say it wasnt a fluke. and when you compare this to the one posted here, even though not done exactly the same it is easy to see where the confusion comes into play because it is the same steps and same required answers just clear in this link whereas it is not in the tutorial here on the forums. i am wondering why kari has not posted that tutorial here as well given the number of people who seem to have the same issues. it is way more clear, literally just 5 minutes in and out one shot. hopefully he will put that one up on here and it would certainly shorten the list of people having problems. i know that most the time things are human error but when i would literally copy paste and answer file straight into WSIM validate it and immediately try to use it and have it fail over and over is mind numbingly painful

Boomhauer said:

SpacemanSam, i appreciate you trying to help like you did. even with your answer file i was getting nowhere and i finally figured out why. now i in no way consider myself to be any more intelligent than i actually am nor any smarter than the person next me but i am by far not the dullest knife in the drawer either if you get what i am saying. i followed every iteration of the examples given to the letter and when that did not work i mixed a little of one with the others and sometimes make a little progress and sometimes didnt but also figured out why i didnt or what happened because i did what i did the way i did it. did this time and time again with the same results 99% of the time while at the same time trying to go thru everything i could find online to figure out why it wasnt working. then i stumbled across this, Relocating Users folder – Yes, it is 100% safe! – Win10.Guru. i knew just as soon as i was halfway thru that this was a once and done and i'll be damned if i wasnt right. i even went back and did it 2 more times just so i could positively say it wasnt a fluke. and when you compare this to the one posted here, even though not done exactly the same it is easy to see where the confusion comes into play because it is the same steps and same required answers just clear in this link whereas it is not in the tutorial here on the forums. i am wondering why kari has not posted that tutorial here as well given the number of people who seem to have the same issues. it is way more clear, literally just 5 minutes in and out one shot. hopefully he will put that one up on here and it would certainly shorten the list of people having problems. i know that most the time things are human error but when i would literally copy paste and answer file straight into WSIM validate it and immediately try to use it and have it fail over and over is mind numbingly painful

I'm glad you got it to work; that's the most important thing!
But I'm curious - did you ever figure out what you were doing wrong before? I am always on the lookout for useful information, in case I ever encounter a similar situation.

GugaJedi said:

I did found what was the problem, the image that I was using where built with the wrong unattended format... not amd64 but wow64. After I've did a redo on that windows 10 image and did a fresh install I was able to do a second sysprep to relocate the Users folder, but I also needed to change a configuration inside the relocate xml file to wasPassProcessed="false" to it to work.

can you elaborate as I don't fully understand the cause and your solution. I downloaded a fresh Windows from microsoft download page, created an ISO with both 32-bit and 64-bit but still getting this error message.

I would address this question to Kari.
I have done the relocation of user folders to different drive since 2016 and haven't had any issues with any of the windows updates or with any other reasons for that matter. Works great. But I'm just wondering as we can see many other methods to do the same thing as well, which is the best method and why?
I'm renewing my processor, motherboard etc. and therefore need to reinstall windows as well as all other stuff. I'm still hanging to W10 PRO instead of W11.
What could be the major benefit of doing the user folder relocation using your method instead of changing windows registry by changing the drive destination for all "User Shell Folder" content, including appdata?
And if I would still do the relocation using your method and then in the future switch over from W10 to W11, how that would work if I'm offered a free upgrade fro 10 to 11 via Windows update?
Thanks in advance for your kind reply!

Is there any further solutions for this issue? I'm stuck in the same place & the solutions being offered frankly aren't terribly helpful. Further, the win10.guru link is dead (looks like the whole domain is dead, actually.)

OP says they've done this innumerable times without any issue. I'm not contesting that. I worked like to have this work painlessly for me too. I'm currently sitting on a non-functional boot drive because of this error state.

Someone further down mentioned changing amd64 to wow64, but there is not context as to what that change means. Nor have my attempts with Google-fu helped. (To add to all this, I'm losing a battle with a head cold, so everything is pretty much one minor frustration from being the end of the world...)

Help would be greatly appreciated. I'll try pruning the shell text out to see if that helps. I also get a dead-lock of some sort during the Sysprep reboot & worry that that might be a contributor to the issue. There's nothing on either drive (I delete the system partitions on that drive during setup & the "user" drive only has the xml file at its root.)

Thank you in advance for the time to read this.

Every few months, I come back to this page to double-double-double check the steps. I've done it often enough I should just remember, but I'm very thankful that this resource exists. Especially with all the manufacturers who install an NVMe SSD and a big HDD, but they don't do the configuration like this! How stupid! More business for me, though.

Thank you Kari! This is the only place I found on the internet after googling for 30 minutes that talked about how to do this. everywhere else said either dont do it or just change location of specific user folders. After reading through this, I realized i could do this using a faster method for those installing fresh by adding this directly into the unatted.xml into my usb thumb drive for windows 11

NEW METHOD - Fast and Simple - For new installs only

Tools you will need:

• Rufus
• Kari's xml code
• Windows Install ISO/Setup Files
• USB Thumbdrive

STEPS
1) Create your Install USB Flash drive using Rufus with your selected Windows Install. Click Start. Rufus asks if you would like to "Customize Windows installation?", enable some or all options desired, this creates an unatted.xml

2) open "FlashDrive:\sources\$OEM$\$$\Panther\unattend.xml"

3) Insert Kari's XML code into the appropriate place within this xml.

Kari's Code

Code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
<settings pass="oobeSystem">
<component name="Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="neutral" versionScope="nonSxS" xmlns:wcm="http://schemas.microsoft.com/WMIConfig/2002/State" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<FolderLocations>
<ProfilesDirectory>D:\Users</ProfilesDirectory>
</FolderLocations>
</component>
</settings>
</unattend>

Note: please be careful to insert it into the correct place. It took me a few minutes to read through all the rufus customization and detect the pattern but it's there and obvious. Yours will look different depending on which customizations your selected

5) Save and install windows as normal

6) Windows loads and Voila the entire USER Directory is now moved!!!


Hope this helps. Created an account just to share this. Maybe someone already said this in the 150+ pages of comments!! Thank you again Kari

Hi all out here;
i'm usnig this methode and also the autounattend.xml methode since years and it worked now since Windows 7 without any issues. Also migration from such modified Win7 installation to Win 10 worked like a charm. The Windows 10 Upgrade were also no problem - till now unfortunately.
The last mounthes I had and have still trouble with Windows 10 21H2 installations where the user folders were moved to other drives.
The Upgrade to 23H2 will not be shown on such instlled windows 10 installation. When I want to do an inplace upgrade I get always the following error:
0x80070020 - 0x2000A ... SAFE_OS phase ... PREPARE_FIRST_BOOT operation

Does anyone have the same issues?

A possibel workaround:
1) Move the Folders back to drive c:
2) Do the upgrade
3) Move the userfolders back to the origin
But that not realy makes me happy!

The same behaviour was recognized with Windows 11 22H2. A direct upgrade to 23H2 was not possible.

Best Regards
Thomas