Windows 7 Taskforce

Indrek wrote on February 26, 2009, 11:21am

+1

Also, this could be an option during installation.

andrei030 wrote on February 26, 2009, 12:35pm

+1.000.000.000

The Microsoft's bastards made me use only one partition with Windows Vista, because is impossible to move User folder to another partition, when something goes wrong I have to make a new parition and move all my data there (resizing all the time to have enoguh space) then install Windows and move all the data again to one partition.

That sucks a bit. Why the hell we can't choose were we want to have our files? Like in older Windows.

Indrek wrote on February 26, 2009, 12:47pm

Er... you can change the location of individual folders (Documents, Pictures, Video etc) and move them to a different drive or partition.

Further, with Libraries in Win7 you can just leave the user directories where they are, put your stuff on another drive/partition and just include it in the respective libraries.

Yes, this is not as convenient as being able to move the whole user folder, but you make it sound like there's no way to move your stuff whatsoever.

lollebol wrote on February 26, 2009, 2:54pm

@ Indrek
ofcourse you can change the location every folder but there should be an easier option then moving your personal folders one by one...

Indrek wrote on February 26, 2009, 3:13pm

I know, and I already agreed with this. I just said andrei030 is exaggerating the situation somewhat.

lollebol wrote on February 26, 2009, 3:21pm

woops i must have overread your first comment my bad

Indrek wrote on February 26, 2009, 3:36pm

No problem.

andrei030 wrote on February 26, 2009, 7:49pm

Indrek I'm not exaggerating, in Windows XP I used to have the "My Documents" folder on a different partition, now that is impossible on Vista, as you said I have to move the folders from "User" folder one by one (of course I knew that, but I'm not talking about that). There goes an example: I want to create a folder called "Stuff" and I want that folder in my "User" folder on desktop, but it wont appear on my "User" folder if I want that files on a secondary partition and if I create the "Stuff" folder in "User" folder then the data will be saved on Windows partition, not on the secondary as I want. I hope I expressed correctly what I wanted do say.
And you are right, Windows 7 uses librarys so there is no problem, the problem is with Vista, you are right, anyway, I hope I can change the "Documents" directory in Windows 7 so the saved games data and other files save directly to a secondary partition.

Indrek wrote on February 26, 2009, 8:02pm

" in Windows XP I used to have the "My Documents" folder on a different partition, now that is impossible on Vista"

No, it's not. As I said, you can move the Documents folder in Vista to a different partition, just like in XP.

As for your scenario - creating a folder in your User directory that's located on a different partition -, that's a valid concern, I've run into that myself in Vista. I ended up just creating shortcuts in my User folder, but you could also create symbolic links.
Also, it's been a while since I last used XP, but I believe your goal is just as hard to accomplish in XP as it is in Vista.

And either way, this site is about Windows 7, not Vista or XP.

andrei030 wrote on February 27, 2009, 5:11pm

You don't get the point, it seems you only want to bother. As I said I know that I can change the folder's path one by one, and as I said I'm not asking for that. Then tell me how to move entire "User" folder to another partition if you are so smart, and the shortcuts aren't an option, maybe you like to use shortcuts but I don't. You can't dumb ass, because is impossible, system files are saved in the User folder in Windows Vista.
In Windows XP the "User" folder is called "My Documents" and the software and games save the data there by default. In Windows Vista the only way to do that is to mess anything, shortcuts anywhere, at a moment you won't know where the files are saved...

Indrek wrote on February 27, 2009, 7:00pm

First off, in XP the equivalent of the User folder is C:\Documents and Settings\Username, which includes other things besides documents (like system files, application data, temporary files etc).
"My Documents" in XP is the equivalent of "Documents" in Vista.

You cannot move your User folder in Vista, I never claimed you could. Just like you cannot move your user folder in XP. Pop a chill pill and read my previous posts again, maybe this time you'll understand what I'm saying.

With that aside, if you don't like shortcuts, try symbolic links like I suggested. They should be much more transparent than shortcuts, in that most applications will believe they're operating directly on the target file/folder.

andrei030 wrote on February 27, 2009, 11:44pm

And then why "My documents" appear directly on desktop in Windows XP? And why My images, My music and My Videos are in the My documents folder?
Ok man you have all the reason.

Mental note: I have to stop talking with idiot people.

Indrek wrote on February 28, 2009, 12:30am

"My Documents" was placed on the XP desktop for convenient access to one's personal files.

As for why the Pictures/Music/Videos folders were inside My Documents in XP, and were moved out of it in Vista - I don't know. Ask Microsoft. Maybe back in XP days people didn't store that much multimedia on their computers, but by the time Vista was in development, the situation had changed, so MS no longer regarded those folders and their contents as a subset of one's documents, and decided to separate them. Also, since one's personal files were no longer stored solely in the Documents folder, a shortcut to the user folder was placed on the desktop instead. A rather logical move, if you think about it for a moment.

But, if you're unwilling to look past your misconceptions and realise what's actually going on, there's nothing I can do about that.

As for your comment about idiots - takes one to know one.

logic_earth wrote on February 28, 2009, 8:17pm

If you want to move your whole user directory, you can do so from another user account like Administrator, then use mlink to create a symbolic link or junction to the new location. There is also a third-party extension that adds the options of creating symbolic/junctions/hardlinks from the context menus.

dontocsata wrote on March 7, 2009, 6:00pm

It is possible to move the entire Users folder to a different drive/partition.

It can only be done at install time by creating an Autounattend.xml file on a USB drive as you install. (I assume the same can be done for Win7, but I don't know).

This switch does it. Google Autounattend.xml for details on creating it.
<FolderLocations>
<ProfilesDirectory>D:\Users</ProfilesDirectory>
</FolderLocations>

andrei030 wrote on March 7, 2009, 6:45pm

I'm sure it can be done, it could be done also with vLite software, there is nothing that couldn't be done on Windows, but would be nice to do it without extra software and without having to reinstall Windows.

bertiebear wrote on January 12, 2010, 9:05pm

I dispair that the geeks that write windows software never seem to use it... Like other users have said, I dont want my data residingh on my c drive! I want to back up my c drive occasionally, as a minimal "system disk" ethat really only changes when I do big things - and have my user data somewhere I can easily identify it and back it up! I first did this by using a specific data partition but over the past year or two I have been using a NAS drive. That way my wife and I can have our data in one place and i'm not trying to back up lots of places. we can have our photos and music and videos in common libraries on a shared drive.
So wehat happens allong comes Windows 7. With libraries. great. ... but no... it wont do libraries on a NAS... what???? I have to have the files on each individual machine????
Even worse my games suddenly loose my saved games or simply wont run if I relocate my docs to a network drive or pull the same stunts that fooled Vista.
So here I am having paid a ransom for windows 7 (which should have been issued free to all the mugs who bought Vista) and my initial impression is that it is even worse!
I am seriously thinking about going back to XP.
These systems should allow us to be creative and use them in the way we work... instead Windows has become ever more restrictive and ever more annoying... "do you really want to run this programme that you just moved your mouse over and clicked" .... OF COURSE I DO!

Toaster wrote on May 24, 2010, 12:28pm

Logic_Earth, can you elaborate on -- "If you want to move your whole user directory, you can do so from another user account like Administrator, then use mlink to create a symbolic link or junction to the new location. There is also a third-party extension that adds the options of creating symbolic/junctions/hardlinks from the context menus."

This seems like one of the few good solutions. Do you know the name of quality third party add-ons for creating symbolic links?
Also, isn't the user directory hacked into the registry somewhere? (I assume the problem with hacking the registry is that some software will ignore the registry.)