Move Documents and Settings folder to its own drive and/or partition

Synopsis

This paper describes how to move "C:\Documents and Settings" to its own drive and/or partition, which will improve system performance by minimizing the fragmentation of Operating System (2000/XP/2003) files. In addition, should the Operating System become corrupt one can reinstall Microsoft Windows without losing any profile data.

This has not been tested on Microsoft Windows Vista. If you have successfully done this please let me know!

Warning: This paper assumes the reader has prior and competent knowledge of installing and administering Microsoft Windows and takes no responsibility for any data lost. It is recommended the registry keys be exported before making changes.

Description

  1. Create a new temporary Administrative account, reboot your PC and log-in under the new profile. Include this account in the changes below unless stated otherwise.

  2. Open Regedit and modify the following key to point to your new profile location (e.g. E:\):

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ProfilesDirectory

  3. Expand ProfileList and modify the following key in each profile (except S-1-5-18), replacing C:\Documents and Settings with the new profile location:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\<profile>\ProfileImagePath

  4. Navigate to the key below and modify all string values so as C:\Documents and Settings points to the new profile location:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\*

  5. Close Regedit, open Explorer (be sure you can view hidden files, including system) and copy all profiles (except LocalService(XP), NetworkService(XP) and the temporary profile you are using) from C:\Documents and Settings to the new profile location.

  6. Reboot your PC; log-in as Administrator and remove the temporary profile; and then delete C:\Documents and Settings.

Troubleshooting

If, when logging back in after point 6, you receive profile errors then make sure that all the directories listed in step 4 exist. Also make sure the Default User has been copied over as all new profiles are created from this template.

If you are unable to delete "C:\Documents and Settings" due to file locks, you may need to scan the registry for keys pointing to "C:\Documents and Settings" and map them to the new profile location.

Thanks to David Chappaz for pointing out the Digital Rights Management key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DRM\DataPath needs to be changed to the new location (if being used). If UpgradePath exists then it should be changed too.

Copyright 2001 - 2010 rjw@