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PC Problem: How can I move my user&program files to a different hard drive?
Created 22nd June 2011 @ 13:33
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Hey
Basically I bought an SSD to put Windows 7 on along with some of my most used applications.
However, I want to some how put my users folder and program files folder onto my 500GB HD. I’ve tried multiple times to mess with the registry settings but it doesnt seem to work..? I’ve also tried an application but that just meant when I restarted my PC it diddn’t recognise my user account meaning I couldnt log in at all forcing me to reinstall again…
Any ideas? I basically want only OS & a coupel of aps on SSD while having my desktop/users/prorgam files on my 500gb.
Thanks!
Google is a man’s best friend:
It has been asked what other little things can be done to squeeze a litle more performance from Windows 7 on our SSD drives… One thing that helps maintain performance on an SSD is the percentage of free space available to the SSD controller to execute ‘wear leveling’. Basically, spreading out the load to the least used empty memory cells.
In order to do this, we need to fool Windows and other programs into looking elsewhere for stuff that is necessary, but rarely used and taking up a lot of disk space.
This part is only useful IF you have your operating system on your SSD AND it is formatted as NTFS and have a second drive available (NTFS) with space free to use.
What we are going to do is move certain directories to the other drive, then make Windows (and the programs) think it is still on the boot drive. We do this by using an NTFS ‘junction’. Think of a junction as a pointer to a location. To the operating system, the files look like they are in location A, but they are really physically in location B.
For the tutorial, we are going to assume that the SSD is C: and the second drive is E:. Substitute your drive letters as needed. As always, MAKE A BACKUP FIRST!
If you are still with me, here is how to do it (the easy way):
Go to Link Shell Extension and download (and INSTALL) the link shell extension software (and VC runtime, follow the instructions on the site) for your flavor of Windows 7 (or barf Vista ).
Make sure explorer is set to SHOW hidden and system files (Tools/Folder Options/View tab, Show hidden, uncheck Hide protected operating system and hide extensions)
Create the following directories:
E:WinSystem
E:WinSystemWindows
Boot into safe mode. Open explorer and navigate to C:Windows.
Right click on the Installer directory and select CUT
Navigate to E:WinSystemWindows right click and select paste. It should have created the directory E:WinSystemWindowsInstaller with files in it.
Right click the directory E:WinSystemWindowsInstaller and select Pick Link Source.
Navigate to C:Windows and right click in the directory and select Drop As and select Junction.
You should now see C:WindowsInstaller is back (with a wierd link on the folder icon)… The OS now will put installer files on the other drive and look for them there, but think it is still on c:!
Other directories I do this with are the HP install directory (C:SwSetup) and MS Office setup directory (C:MSOCache).
In the previous tutorials, yo learned how to move the TEMP and internet Temporary files… This is a good place for them too. Here is the directory structure on my E:WinSystem directory:
E:WinSystemMSOCache
E:WinSystemSwSetup
E:WinSystemTemp
E:WinSystemTemporary Internet Files
E:WinSystemWindowsInstaller
Just make sure to drop the junction in the same place as the original directory and the OS will be none the wiser and you will have moved GIGABYTES of seldom used stuff of your SSD (and redirected some more writes)!
The only down side that I have found is as follows: If your backup strategy is like mine WAS, then you would only be making a backup image of the SSD. The problem is, that image backup software does not see that you moved the files, so they cannot copy the files in the E:WinSystem directory with the image. The fix is quite simple if U are using Windows 7 backup: Along with the system image, have it back up the directory E:WinSystem. Then it will keep them together and in sync (you restore the image AND the directory that went with the image).
Undoing the junction is easy too, if you want to. Simply delete the junction from the C drive and move the directory back where it was (hence the reasoning I had you create WinSystemWindowsInstaller instead of WinSystemInstaller as a reminder of where the directory was when U started (thinking of WinSystem as the root)!
Oh, and here’s the source: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/70822-ssd-tweaks-optimizations-windows-7-a.html
There’s a lot more over there… SSD’s cost serious money so you better maximize the benefit :)
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