Windows Vista Tip #4: Move your data folders to a separate drive

Tips, Windows Vista 2 Minutes

Update 24-Feb-2007: There’s an even easier way to accomplish this. Details here:

Vista Hands On #7: Move user data to another drive

If you prefer the manual approach, keep reading…

Windows Vista makes a few fundamental changes in the default folders used to store personal data. For starters, the Documents and Settings folder is gone, replaced by the Users folder, which is located in the root of the system drive (usually C:). Each user account has its own profile folder here, which contains 11 folders, each devoted to a different type of data.

If you have multiple hard drives (or multiple partitions on a single hard drive) you can relocate any of these user folders. The advantage? By separating system files from data, you make it easy to back up and restore each. At least once a month, you can use the backup program in Windows Vista Ultimate Edition to create an image-based backup on DVD or an external hard disk. If something happens to your system drive, you can restore the image, and your data files remain unaffected.

In my experience, the Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos folders are most likely to contain large amounts of data and will benefit most from relocation. In this case, I assume you have a separate empty drive or partition that uses the letter E:. If your system is configured differently, you’ll need to adjust the instructions accordingly.

Here’s how to relocate the Documents folder:

  1. Open Windows Explorer, navigate to the empty drive that you want to use to store data, and create new folders for each of the existing folders you want to move. If you’re the only user on your computer, you can put them in the root of the drive: E:\Documents, E:\Music, and so on. If you’re planning to use the drive to store data for two or more users, you should create a separate top-level folder for each user and then create subfolders for each type of data: E:\Ed\Documents, etc.
  2. Click Start and click the bold user name at the top of the right column in the Start menu. This opens your profile folder.
  3. Right-click the icon for the Documents folder and choose Properties.

    4. Move_docs_folder_1

     

  4. On the Location tab, click the Move button.
  5. In the Select a Destination dialog box, double-click Computer, double-click the icon for your data drive (E: in this example), and select the folder you want to use as the new location. Don’t double-click this folder, just click to select it.
  6. Click Select Folder to return to the Location tab, and then click OK. You will see two dialog boxes:
    • Do you still want to proceed and redirect to <new folder location>? Click Yes.
    • Would you like to move all of the files in your old location to the new location…? Click Yes. (If you click No, the original folder remains intact and you risk having documents split between the two locations.)

That’s it. You can now repeat the process for Music, Pictures, Videos, and any other data folders you want to use. When you click the Documents shortcut on the Start menu, it takes you to the new location, which appears to be in the same old location. In the Vista namespace, your profile folder always appears under the Desktop, and each link in that folder points to the location you specify. So you can leave some folders (especially those you rarely use) in the original location and just move those that are chock full of data.

Published by Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

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34 thoughts on “Windows Vista Tip #4: Move your data folders to a separate drive”

  1. Wow. I can think of a few people (myself included) that will hail this with open arms.

  3. Hey John, I’ve actually published those tips for Windows XP before. See here for the My Documents folder (complete with screenshot) and here for other folders.

    The procedures are sufficiently different for Windows Vista that it’s worth publishing the steps separately.

  4. I wish there were a quick and easy way to move the entire Users folder tree to another drive to completely separate the system from user data.

  5. Agreed but many BitLocker related articles suggest otherwise (that you store data on your OS partition so it’ll be encrypted by Bitlocker). So, users would have to trade off between encryption or compact image-based backups.

  6. Pingback: Dee’s-Planet! » Windows Vista Tip #4: Move your data folders to a separate drive

  7. Anonymous,

    You can use EFS on the data partition and Bitlocker on your system partition. That’s on my list of things to test, but it should work just fine.

  8. Hello!

    I have two disks (C: and D:)
    I want to install Vista Beta to folder “C:\WINVISTA\”.
    Is it possible to configure Vista setup so
    that Users folder is located on “D:\USERS\” and
    “Program files” on “D:\PFILES” by default?

    Thanks, Roman

  9. Hi,
    AFAIK, it’s nearly the same as Windows XP.
    But what about the Public folders ?
    Actually (in build 5456) we cannot easily change their location. Is there a tip ?

  10. A somewhat belated reply… I have seen a number of different blogs with this issue raised…

    Also comments that it would be a good idea for microsoft to include a tool or option for installing or moving the complete user profile, including any local application data – not sure yet how Outlook etc store their data as very new to Vista.

    It must be time for MS to deliver something along these lines??

  12. My “documents” folder has disappeared!

    While trying to move and then re-store the location of “documents”, I believe I have accidently chosen
    “C:\users\ideen” (ideen is the user) as the loction for
    documents (as opposed to “C:\users\ideen\documents”).

    How can I restore or move to “E:\documents” (where I meant to move it)?

    Many thanks! Ideen

  13. Perhaps try this in the registry:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Explorer\Shell Folders

  14. Too bad this dialog don’t even change the junction point for “My Documents” to the new location …

    You have to manually change:
    Cd
    rd “My Documents”
    mklink /d “My Documents” X:\New_Document_Location

  15. I’ve been looking at this one for a long time. In XP the best way to setup is C: for system D: for Applications and E: for Documents and Settings. The best way to get this is with an answer file during installation.

    I’ve found the same with Vista, but putting the Users folder on E: and again we’re back to the answer file during installation. You can us Windows Vista Automated Installation Kit (AIK) on an XP machine to creat an answer file “Autounattend.xml” which can setup almost anything. It can setup the three partitions C:, D: amd E: make C: active and install the OS to C: and put the User Folder onto E:, which means any new users which are created wil go there.

    I’ve done this on Vista RC2 and works really well so forget about all that moving cr*p it will drive you made after a while!

    Hope that helps Cheer

  16. Carl, Which setting do you change to move Users folder to another partition in Image Manager?.. Thanks

  17. Hi Toto,

    In ‘Windows System Image Manager’ use the following componant:

    PLATFORM_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_VERSION_neutral

    and add FolderLocations setting to ‘Pass7 oobeSystem’ in the Answer File.

    On the RTM Version of Vista on an AMD64 the componant would look like:

    amd64_Microsoft-Windows-Shell-Setup_6.0.6000.16386_neutral

    If you can have a good read though the “Unattended Windows Setup Reference” help file, takes a bit of messing with it for a while.

    Cheers

  18. Hi Carl 🙂

    but I cant’t get how i specifify drive… i mean I type value of ProfileDirectory as a “D:\Users”?

    Thanks again 🙂

  19. Hi there,

    wouldn’t it help to move a users profile folder (c:\Users\User1) to another drive and then do an ‘mklink /J’ to the new location?

    Cheers

  20. The ProfileList trick still seems to work in Vista.

    Basically, go to the Registry, look for ProfileList, and change the location. All user accounts created after the change would be created in the new location. Existing ones need to be moved manually (I recreated mine).

  22. Moving the Users Folders works OK, but the problem is that doing so makes the security settings disapear. After moving the different folders to, lets say the D: drive, the different user folders are accessable from all user acounts!

    I have tired to change the security settings without luck. Anyone cracked this; meaning keaping the prompt to enter a pasword when entering a user folder that does not belong to you?

  23. There is a much easier way 😉
    Just cut and paste the folders to another location. It really works. Success!

  24. This is great but this assumes you want to move your existing profile locations – what about moving the Windows Vista user folder named Public?

  25. in xp you could search for every instance of “c:\documents and settings” and manually change them to “d:\documents and settings” (very tedious).

    i haven’t tried yet, but a very brief look at the registry in vista makes me think you could do the same thing… done right that’ll move not just existing accounts, but future ones as well.

  26. LazyNinja,

    That would not achieve the result you’re looking for, either in XP or in Vista. If you try it in Vista, I guarantee you’ll run into problems sooner or later, probably sooner.

    There are so many changes in this regard in Vista that you really need to do some studying first. For starters, Documents and Settings no longer exists. Profiles are stored in the Users folder

  27. Change the Public folder locations in the registry. Run regedit and change the values within HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\Shell Folders

  28. All, copy all data to destinationdrive and then edit registry:

    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

    There you can edit and put the correct path!

    I did and Works fine!
    Bye

  29. The trouble with this is (and this really gets to me) is that if you move say..Pictures, Music, Documents etc to say…My E: drive, instead of keeping the name “Documents”, “Music”, etc they all get renamed to the name of my partition I placed them in. (In this case, Documents). That is the only thing that puts me off. And I’ve tried renaming the shortcuts back to Pictures, Music etc…it doesn’t work. It only renames the whole damned parition. Anybody know a workaround for this?

  30. To effectively move profiles from one Drive to another on XP was a rather simple case:

    Create and Login as User to Move
    Log out then in As administrator
    Use Copy Profile To Tool in Control Panel -> System
    Open Regedit and Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
    Select from this folder the User u wish to move then change the value in the ProfileImagePath
    Logoff admin and login as user… Move done. The Entire %userprofile% Set is now on a different Drive.

    Just Be aware that effectively moving everything for all users can be strange. Ensure that if you create system Variables such as a imitator for %profilepath% that they resolve perfectly.

    This process gave me a bit of grief on Vista…. will go look at it again soon enough

  31. Carl,

    unattend.xml [AIK] file is (should be) the best option.
    But I’ve a problem with changing location of user profiles dir.
    It just doesn’t change! Worse: I can’t even log on after install.
    I’ve tried different combination, done lots of installs but unsuccesfully.
    Anyone have an idea whats the problem?
    When i looked on partition and folders i found ‘Default’ folder, where were supposed to be user profiles (this one from unattend.xml). On C:\users where the rest of folders, but i couldnt find folder with name ive chosen after install!
    My os: Vista Business x64, on AMD64 X2 cpu.

    Hope somebody can help me 🙂

  32. Thanks for the tips BUT
    I hate this new setup for saving documents as I like to have a seperate folder for all my programs ie Word XL Powerpoint etc. I dont want to be forced to save my data the way Microsoft wants me to. I think I will revert to XP

  33. Jereny,

    Huh? This is the way XP behaves also, except that the default personal data folder is called My Documents.

    If you want to create custom data folders, just make them subfolders of your Documents folder. Or get a separate drive and put the data files in whatever folders you want right there in the root of that drive.

    If your programs will allow you to create a default data directory then great. Otherwise you just go to your Documents folder or to the root of your data drive and click the shortcut you want.

  34. Hi everyone,
    I want to shift the desktop folder from C:\Docement and ……
    to D:\Desktop. How do I do it? Can anyone help me.

    I see lot of discussion has been happening in this topic, but I am not able to clearly make out an answer for my problem.

    Thanks in advance.

    Mukund

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