Move Users Folder Location in Windows 10  

Kari said:

1. Install Windows normally by booting the PC with the USB install media you created. When in Audit Mode desktop and creating the Answer File, mount the ISO and use the install.wim in it in your answer file as the CPI Source.
2. No, the destination drive, the drive where you will relocate the USers folder to should be empty. The system will create the Users folder on it.
3. When you clean install Windows 10 there's no reason to use a so called "dummy" local account first. When you arrive to OOBE phase and the dialog to create the initial user after you have sysprepped, simply use your MS Account.
   
   The dummy user is practical and only needed for instance when you first install Windows 7 or 8.1 simply in order to be able to upgrade to 10 which you want to sysprep. In that case you first install let's say Windows 7 and use a dummy user to set it up, upgrade to 10 and enter the Audit Mode from the settings screen as told in this tutorial, customize and relocate the Users folder for example, then sysprep and finalize the installation with your real user account, and finally when on desktop delete the dummy account.

Kari

I should have mentioned that I already installed my Windows 10. Installed my apps, games, linked my profiles all the stuff. Just moving the Users folder is all I have to do. Will this affect the procedure? Or do I go ahead, create the answer file, save it and reboot into sys prep and mount the ISO? Also, the drive that I want to move my Users folder has some data on it(files and folders only), will that affect it meaning the drive will be erased or should I really get a empty drive?

My current setup :

• Drive C: - OS and program files installed here
• Drive D: - My games (steam, origin etc) is installed here eg D:\Program Files (x86)
• Drive F: - Has my pictures, my documents etc from my Windows 7 install(Backup) and here is where I wish to move the Users folder too.

Regards

Dear Kari

Firstly many thanks for a fantastic job with those tutorials !

I hope that You can help me here as I have a problem

Im trying to upgrade my win8 pro to win10 pro hoever I want to move back to just C Drive pernamentelly
Im currentlly running my OS on 128 SSD and Partition F: from HHD is for all my apps and programs
All works well on windows 8 no issues there
Im planning to upgrade my SSD drive to a bigger one so there is no need for me to keep user profile on F: any more
Also I would like to upgrade my system to windows 10

I was following Your tutorial to give it a go and relocate user profile from F: back to C: in order to perform upgrade
Unfortunetelly I ending up with the same issue every time during sysprep
After a while i can see this massage: 'Windows could not parse or process unattend answer file ..................
This error was detected while processing settings for component [Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup].'

Ive tried 4x times today and the same issue come up every time
Sysprep was working great when I was installing fresh OS (Windows 8 ) in to the same PC and hardware didnt changed since than

Please Help !

My CPU is I7 Intel
Please see my XML file below
<?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>C:\Users</ProfilesDirectory>
</FolderLocations>
</component>
</settings>
<cpifflineImage cpi:source="wim:u:\sources\install.wim#Windows 8 Pro" xmlns:cpi="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:cpi" />
</unattend>

HI Kari

Many thanks for a ultrafast reply
This is very interesting actually as when im trying to view the log in that folder it says ( Access Danied ) !
My user is a member of a local administrators so i should have access to everything right ?

cheers
Jack

Well everything ran without any warnings. The Users folders is now in the destination drive, however now I cannot click on my Start Button, stuff that I have pinned are not showing up and my mail app keeps giving some weird notifications that can't open either. What did I do wrong?diagerr.zip

Hi Kari

Please see Zip File Attached

New folder.zip

Many Thanks
Jack

HI Kari

Yea I know soemthing is wrong
Also when Im adding a new user then windows is not creating a folder for that user any more
I cannot even see that user icon when im trying to switch the users
I even cant loging as a local Administrator account wchich i just enabled
Maybe this is a part of the issue ?

Many Thanks for Your help

cheers
Jack