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Can someone please give me the right procedure to move a USERPROFILE from C drive to D drive in Windows XP? I found two questions on this forum and in one question the link is dead: How do you move your profile folder in Windows XP?

And another one, Move Windows profile directory?, suggests using mklink which does not work in XP. I tried dragging the user's profile with the right mouse button and selecting Move Here, but that did not work.

I would really appreciate it if someone could help here with some [hopefully] simple working steps.

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rashid
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2 Answers2

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I used this approach in a previous life, worked for me.

http://www.cpsb.org/system/dataprocessing/File%20and%20Settings%20Transfer%20Wizard%20instructions.pdf

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slotishtype
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  • it just creates a backup of files and folders. I want to move the USERPROFILE to another drive/location. – rashid May 31 '11 at 18:49
  • Can you not shift the folders to another drive? Let me have a looksy. – slotishtype May 31 '11 at 20:06
  • well for My Documents, i do this right click > properties > specify a path > click Move. But it does not move the userprofile. – rashid Jun 01 '11 at 14:06
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Follow instructions here but instead of using mklink, since you are on XP, try fsutil.

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Michael Pryor
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  • when i try C:\>fsutil hardlink C:\docsBackUp "C:\My Documents". I get C:\docsBackUp is an invalid parameter. – rashid May 31 '11 at 19:07
  • @rashid: hardlinks can't cross volume mountpoints, you'll need to use junctions. If XP has no native way of creating them via `fsutil`, use [`Junction`](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768) from Sysinternals. For a clean install, using an unattended setup file is far easier. – afrazier May 31 '11 at 19:15
  • its not a clean install, is it that hard to move a userprofile? – rashid May 31 '11 at 19:18
  • @rashid windows assumes your userprofile is on the drive your %windir% is on, so yea... it is that hard. – Michael Pryor May 31 '11 at 20:29