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Jorks's avatar
Jorks
Copper Contributor
Sep 26, 2017

Move Users Folder to Other Drive

An user asked if is possible to move the Users Folder to Another folder because the C: Drive is an SSD and is not so big.

I know the Microsoft don't Approve too much, i know that we cannot  Upgrade a system after that.....but is a request and we tried to do it..

I tried with this guide:

https://winaero.com/blog/move-the-users-folder-in-windows-10-windows-8-and-windows-7/

I have to move the users folder form C: to D:

I run a Windows 10 DVD media and instead install Windows 10 i run **bleep** + F10 running a command prompt

In the recovery environment  c: became e: and d: became c:  

I used a Robocopy command to Copy all the data instead of Xcopy because i read that it does not work in the latest version of Windows 10:

robocopy /copyall /mir /ja e:\users c:\users  

I have renamed the old users forlder(in E:) in users_bak

then i create a directory junction in e: (that will be my c drive in "normal" environment when i reboot) with target D:\Users (that will be the new Users folder )

mklink /j e:\users d:\users

It seems to work but there is something that leave me a bit.....worried...

Even if a have renamed the old Users folder as Users_bak in Windows Explorer i see only a link Users(that i suppose is my directory junction) and a folder users instead a folder users_bak(as expected).

while if i open a command prompt and i run dir in C drive i see what i expect, a directory junction users-->d:\users and a folder user_bak.

This make me s bit in confusion but probably is due to the fact that users is a system folder managed in different ways by windows. is correct?

if yes  could i Delete now "C:\users" or not?

  • Niklas77's avatar
    Niklas77
    Copper Contributor

    A bit late to the party, but could be useful for others:
    The users_bak folder is still displayed as Users, due to the foldername localization.
    Within your users_bak folder (as well as others) there is a hidden system file called desktop.ini, which contains some settings about how the folder is displayed by the Explorer.

    Below you can see the german name of the Users folder:

    When clicking in the address bar of the Explorer window, the real path is displayed:


    When you renamed the folder, the desktop.ini file, was kept in the folder, and is still used by the Explorer to show the translated name.
    To prevent this, just open the file with Notepad and remove the line:
    LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21813

    Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/embedded/ms906608(v=msdn.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN

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