Move Users Folder Location in Windows 10  

Believe it or not, that happens a lot.

I have seen Kari tell 3 different users about that, and I did it myself more than once in the early days, at 7F.

johngalt said:

Believe it or not, that happens a lot.

I have seen Kari tell 3 different users about that, and I did it myself more than once in the early days, at 7F.

That happens to me every now and then.

   Tip

When Sysprep is run and no /unattend:X:AnswerFile.xml switch is given, Sysprep looks if an answer file named exactly as unattend.xml exists in C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep folder. If it exists, it will be used.

Short: instead of saving the answer file as for instance F:\relocate.xml, save it as C:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\unattend.xml and run Sysprep simply without /unattend switch:

Code:

sysprep.exe /oobe /reboot

This would run Sysprep using unattend.xml, Sysprep knows where to look for it.

Kari

I currently have my User folder residing on another drive (G), but Windows has issues, and I have a two part question.
Couple of months ago we had a fairly good size windows update (Clean install of 10 Pro 64bit Sept 1st), it download, installed. but after reboot I got the "update failed". No matter how many times I tried, and using all methods in forums, Win 10 would/will no longer do any updates.

1. I was going to run windows repair (from within windows), installing widows over windows with the option of keeping my personal files, and apps. If I do the above install, will it mess my User profile relocation to my G: drive?

2. This is kind of semi-related. My current G: drive is getting old, and also near full, can I clone the drive to a new larger drive, and not have to worry about loosing my location profile? Relocation xml resides on the root of G:

User Profiles - Relocate to another Partition or Disk - (2) Part Quest


No one has a reply for my above question?

Thank You most kind, and knowledgeable Mr. Kari

HC1Gunner said:

1. I was going to run windows repair (from within windows), installing widows over windows with the option of keeping my personal files, and apps. If I do the above install, will it mess my User profile relocation to my G: drive?

No. In-place and repair installs work just fine regardless if the Users folder has been relocated with this method or not.

HC1Gunner said:

2. This is kind of semi-related. My current G: drive is getting old, and also near full, can I clone the drive to a new larger drive, and not have to worry about loosing my location profile? Relocation xml resides on the root of G:

I do not recommend it but it is doable. Just remember, the system (current Windows installation) needs to be offline when you do it. Boot computer with boot media of your chosen imaging / cloning software, clone the disk, remove the old failing one and be sure the new cloned one got same letter, G: in your case.

My recommendation though is to move all personal user data from all user profiles (not AppData folders!) to external drive to reduce the size of Users (the less there is to move, the faster it goes), move Users folder back to C: drive using Method Two in tutorial just changing the ProfilesFolder value in answer file to C:\Users, then shut down PC and replace the failing drive, boot to desktop and finally do Method Two again, this time moving Users to new disk / drive.

Now restore the backed up personal user data from external drive back to respective user profile folders.

Kari

RochustCN said:

1. Must the drive into which I want to relocate the Users folder be empty?

No, although it is recommended. In any case it cannot contain any Windows system files or folders from any other Windows installation.

RochustCN said:

2. Then the latter half of the sentence seems meaningless if the drive is empty.

I am afraid but I have not a faintest clue what you mean with this?

Kari

RobMahn said:

I moved Users after having my users setup. All went as planned, but upon checking the registry, there were many records still pointing to C:\Users. These obviously could not work. I used too called "Registrar Registry Manager" that has a free home version to rename everything.

There were some other minor cleanup problems with Outlook 2013 files and DropBox. I had to remove DropBox and re-install. Then I was able to delete all remaining files in C:\Users. Checking for files left behind in C:\Users would be a good cleanup check.

In Windows 10 I have never had any issues with "leftovers" in C:\Users. It simply does not exist after I have relocated Users with Sysprep. I have never had to edit registry manually.