Moving users folder on Windows Vista/7 to another partition

mklink /d myuser d:\moved\myuser

On modern versions of NTFS, junction points which you used on XP are replaced with directory symlinks.

Though, I don't really recommend doing this... you're not likely to see any performance benefit.


The easiest and most reliable method of getting your user profile onto another (i.e., non-system) partition is to have Windows create it there for you. On Vista, I've used the following steps to have my user profile created on D: instead of C:.

  1. Install Vista and make the first user account "Administrator".

  2. Login. Use regedit.exe to modify the ProfilesDirectory registry key to point to the D: partition.

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
      ProfilesDirectory = D:\Users
    
  3. Create your normal user account, login, logout.

  4. Login to Administrator and change the ProfilesDirectory registry key back to its original value (%SystemDrive%\Users).

  5. Use the account created at step (3) as your normal user account (for application install and use).

This works much better than manually moving the folders and creating symlinks/junctions.


There is a similar question on serverfault, you should check that out.

But I have had serious second thoughts about this being a good idea.