Comments on: How to move user data folder to non-system partition in windows 7/vista

By: Miguel

Miguel — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:38:55 +0000

When you are using “/J” make sure that you delete the original directory/Folder. The Junction will automatically create the new folder that will just act as the forward. This is why many people are getting the error “Cannot create a file when that file already exists.” Once it is delete the command should work with no issues.

HTH,

Miguel

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:18:10 +0000

Are you sure this works after reinstalling Windows? I’ve tried it, and after linking to the old account, I get either logged out when trying to log in, or I just get logged in with a temporary account.

By: Colin

Colin — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 08:00:04 +0000

It works better to create a Junction rather than a symbolic link, e.g.:
mklink /J C:\Users\MyLogin D:\users\MyLogin

Also, make _SURE_ you copy any hidden and system files over as well!

By: Marc

Marc — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 14:41:12 +0000

It’s a shame that Microsoft makes us tanker around instead of providing a neat standardized solution to the very common wish to separate OS and user data…

By: robaal

robaal — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 14:05:47 +0000

To avoid the “Cannot create a file when that file already exists”, make sure to uncheck “Hide protected operating system files” and enable “Show hidden files(…)” in Windows Explorer folder options before moving the contents of the user folder.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:24:15 +0000

When I try to move the Users folder to another partition, I get the error message: “Error 0×80070057. The parameter is incorrect”. Does anyone know how to fix this?
thanks

By: Sebu

Sebu — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:49:47 +0000

I’m curious, but does this work so that if I link mklink /D C:\Users\ D:\users\, every profile created afterwards will automatically create the profile directories on D?

Basically, I guess what I’m trying to say, is can this method replace this one?
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/howto_optimize_your_windows_profile_and_media_storage_ssd

By: beng

beng — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:13:23 +0000

Note: on vista home premium 64 i also get the message
“Cannot create a file when that file already exists”
when i try to create the symbolic link, so the method on this page does not work for me.

Just dragging over the folders (see the zdnet link above) works though. It won’t move the NTUSER.dat and other system registry files, but it works for the documents, favorites, etc folders, which is the important data.

By: beng

beng — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:10:52 +0000

For moving thepublic folder, see:
http://integrityitsolutions.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-move-public-folder-to-different.html

Also on vista it is good to set the permissions on the moved to location folder to the same as on the folder in C:\users

By: beng

beng — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 09:51:04 +0000

You can simply righh-click drag and move the folders from your user folder to the new folder on the other partition, see:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=215