Default Program and Folder Locations in Windows 7

[doctordoctor]

I have Win 7 Pro installed on a primary SSD drive with a 1 TB storage drive that I plan to use for most other software, documents, and music, et cetera.

Is there a mechanism to change the default location for new programs as well as documents, videos, music, et cetera in one fell swoop, rather than changing the location for each library for each user, et cetera?

What is the best approach to handle this?

I have a lot of headroom on the SSD drive, but I plan to install Premier and Photoshop there, and using the storage drive for everything else.

 

[JackMDS]

There is no need to move my document. It is better to build a new Tree folder on your secondary drive and use it as a self-made My Documents; it allows more flexible features to control Sharing.

Moving the Programs installation to a secondary drive is a path to Mega problems.

If you really perceive a significant advantage from Photoshop on SSD get a second SSD and use it just for Photoshop.


😎

 

[Gooberlx2]

Well, one option would be to make a junction from c:\Program Files and c:\Users to corresponding folders on your secondary drive.

For example, I'd boot in to the recovery mode/console from the Win7 install disc, robocopy everything over and then make the junctions.

robocopy /mir /copyall /xj c:\Users d:\Users
rmdir /s /q c:\Users
mklink /j c:\Users d:\Users

I'm pretty sure such a method would be transparent to the system, but there might be some weird Windows quirks to doing so. So backup all data first and attempt at your own risk.

edit:
There are some registry entries you can change after the move, if you don't want to rely on the junction points. Basically as described here

 

[FishAk]

Navigate to C>Users>UserName

Right click on the folder you want to move, and select Properties (example = Desktop)

Select the Location tab

Change:
C:Users\UserName\Desktop
to:
X:Users\UserName\Desktop (where X = the partition or drive you wish to move the folder to)

Click yes or OK a couple times. You can't move AppData

I realise this method isn't the "one fell swoop", but unless you have lots of users to move is the easiest way. Lots of stuff doesn't work with junction points- like FireFox for instance.

 

[Gooberlx2]

like FireFox for instance.

What happens with firefox, out of curiosity?

 

[FishAk]

What happens with firefox, out of curiosity?

FireFox needs some stuff in AppData, and it cant get to it if it's moved with a junction point. I can't remember exactly how it fails, but it doesn't load. The same result was achieved by only moving the FireFox folder from AppData.

There were some other things that wouldn't work also, but I can't remember what. The GoogleEarth cache moves just fine with a junction point. You can't just change the location from the Properties.

 

[Modelworks]

Use the mklink command to make a symbolic link instead of a junction. Junctions are absolute paths so some apps break.

symbolic links are one of the best underused features in windows vista+ . you can do things like :
mklink /d \Mywebsite \192.168.0.10\home
and it wil show as the folder Mywebsite in explorer under the C drive and all the applications think it is local.

to remove a link just delete the directory like normal,
rmdir Mywebsite