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OK I know someone has gone over this before but my search-fu fails me on this Monday. Does anyone have a fail proof way to move the Users folder from a SSD to another drive. More specifically how do you do it in Windows 8. (incidentally I followed the guide I had for Windows 7 and it didn't work :/ )

In File Explorer, find where it lives now, then right-click, properties, location...

I'm on Windows 8, and there is no Location tab for the Users folder. I had to go into the properties page for each individual folder (Downloads, Documents, Music, etc.) and change the location there.

Yup as AustinW there isnt a Location tab. This really doesn't offload the users folder as it did in Win 7. And besides if you have multiple users logging into a PC it doesnt work.

I've done it several times with Windows 7 using the methods below. I imagine the procedure is mostly (if not entirely) the same, don't take my word for it though, make sure you have everything backed up also.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/124198-user-profiles-create-move-during-windows-7-installation.html
http://lifehacker.com/5467758/move-the-users-directory-in-windows-7

AustinW wrote:

I'm on Windows 8, and there is no Location tab for the Users folder. I had to go into the properties page for each individual folder (Downloads, Documents, Music, etc.) and change the location there.

That's what I did, too. Is this too difficult?

Yeah, You're really not moving the Users directory just the underlying folders. So if a new User comes along and logs in a new set of folders are created in the original Users folder location.

The lifehacker post does the trick but its cumbersome, having to do it in recovery mode is even more of a pain. I am trying to script it and see if I can push it through SCM BUT there HAS to be a better way. Someone somewhere has to have already automated this process........I just cant find it.

I've not done this for the users folder, but I have used hard links within my libraries to move stuff around. Would this work for you? if I recall I did this across drives... something to do with preventing search indexer from hitting a NAS I was using at the time. I have a hard time remembering because hardlinks have some funny rules depending on the OS and FS used. Maybe it was a soft link (file junction)? Anyways, see the URL link below.
http://ipggi.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/w ... ard-links/

Under Linux you'd have the option to mount a partition as a directory (very commonly done with /home or /export/home). Google says Windows can do that, too.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 53321.aspx

tanker27 wrote:

Yeah, You're really not moving the Users directory just the underlying folders. So if a new User comes along and logs in a new set of folders are created in the original Users folder location.

The lifehacker post does the trick but its cumbersome, having to do it in recovery mode is even more of a pain. I am trying to script it and see if I can push it through SCM BUT there HAS to be a better way. Someone somewhere has to have already automated this process........I just cant find it.

Unattended/answer file during setup is the best option AFAIU. So are you moving to a standard SSD+HDD setup for all your users? That said, I don't believe moving the temp folders (yes, multiple of them) away from SSD is a good idea, since the speed boost is too great to ignore? Documents/Music/Videos/Pictures/Downloads I can understand.

Hmmm. There isnt a temp folder under \Users but there is a hidden \appdata folder which has a bunch of \temp folders (for each app). I may be a bit overzealous when I wand to offload all of \Users to a HDD. II may just have to resort to moving the individual folders within a \User folder. bah. In windows 7 it was easy I could do what I want. /grumble....stupid Windows 8.....