Windows 10 User Folder Help

[2blzd]

This may get a little convoluted but I will try my best to keep it simple..here goes...

I just installed Windows 10 and moved my user folders (downloads, documents, music, desktop) off my C: drive (SSD) onto my D: drive (HDD). This is something that I did on Windows 7 and it worked flawlessly. Now after moving all those folders, if I click on my user folder "C:\Users\me", none of the folders are in there anymore.

Obviously I just moved them to my D: drive but in windows 7, no matter where I moved the individual user folders, if I ever opened the 'master' user folder, it would still display them (Wherever they were).

IN windows 10, once I moved them to the D: drive, it also removed them from the master folder C:\Users\me folder.

I hope this makes sense, but how do I get my user folder to display the moved individual user folders? I swear it was automatic and I didn't have to create shortcuts.

If I clicked on C:\Users\me, it would open the user folder, and within that there would be Documents, Music, Desktop, Downloads all from D:\


Do I have to point my C:\Users\me to where the new folder locations are?

I'm so lost

 

[mpo]

I ran into the same issue when I went from a HDD to SSD+HDD with Windows 10.

I had to go into File Explorer, under quick access, find the folder (e.g., Documents) and right click. Choose 'properties'.

Under the 'Location' tab, you can use the 'move' button to move the folder to the D:\ drive.

 

[sweenish]

Yeah, if you didn't move them the right way, it won't work.

 

[2blzd]

that's exactly how I did it

 

[mikeymikec]

From what I've seen, I think MS has downplayed the role of what you describe as the 'master folder' as a UI element since Win7 (not sure if the change you described occurred in Win8x or 10). I'm kind of glad about this because of the amount of times inexperienced users had accidentally dragged+dropped say the Pictures folder to be a subfolder of say the videos folder

If you really want to see all your moved folders from C:\users\username, you could set up NTFS junctions so they appear as normal folders in that location (even though they're actually stored elsewhere).

junction is an MS sysinternals tool you can freely download. CD to your user folder, then the format of the command is:

JUNCTION -s Music D:\wherever\your\music\folder\is

 

[2blzd]

From what I've seen, I think MS has downplayed the role of what you describe as the 'master folder' as a UI element since Win7 (not sure if the change you described occurred in Win8x or 10). I'm kind of glad about this because of the amount of times inexperienced users had accidentally dragged+dropped say the Pictures folder to be a subfolder of say the videos folder

If you really want to see all your moved folders from C:\users\username, you could set up NTFS junctions so they appear as normal folders in that location (even though they're actually stored elsewhere).

junction is an MS sysinternals tool you can freely download. CD to your user folder, then the format of the command is:

JUNCTION -s Music D:\wherever\your\music\folder\is

Thanks mike for taking the time to reply. I'm just glad someone understands what I said/trying to do. It's a very frustrating thing to search google for because it's so specific. I should have taken screenshots of those folders/windows locations before I installed Windows 10 to make..I wonder if I actually moved the master user folder or told it to point somewhere else...Im pretty sure Windows 7 did it automatically.

No matter, I'll get used to it.

 

[mikeymikec]

There isn't a UI method to move the master folder, at least nothing as friendly or thorough as say moving the documents folder.

If you wanted to move the master folder, the way I'd do it is this:

create another user, give it admin privs
(a restart may be required before the next steps for the move to work properly) sign out of your user, sign in as the new one
move your user folder (back up first might be an idea) to new location
go into the registry: HKLM > SOFTWARE > MS > WINDOWS NT > CURRENTVERSION > PROFILELIST
Find your user amongst the keys
one of the subkeys will show your user's old path, change it to the new one
Sign in as your normal user.
Delete the spare user user when you're completely happy that everything is working with your normal profile.
If you've changed locations of any other folders (such as documents), I wouldn't change them again (or during) until this procedure is complete.

I'm writing this soon after waking up, so I may read it later and think "oops, I forgot x".

 

[2blzd]

There isn't a UI method to move the master folder, at least nothing as friendly or thorough as say moving the documents folder.

If you wanted to move the master folder, the way I'd do it is this:

create another user, give it admin privs
(a restart may be required before the next steps for the move to work properly) sign out of your user, sign in as the new one
move your user folder (back up first might be an idea) to new location
go into the registry: HKLM > SOFTWARE > MS > WINDOWS NT > CURRENTVERSION > PROFILELIST
Find your user amongst the keys
one of the subkeys will show your user's old path, change it to the new one
Sign in as your normal user.
Delete the spare user user when you're completely happy that everything is working with your normal profile.
If you've changed locations of any other folders (such as documents), I wouldn't change them again (or during) until this procedure is complete.

I'm writing this soon after waking up, so I may read it later and think "oops, I forgot x".

Im pretty sure I never did any of that which leads me to believe Windows 7 just kept track of the folders automatically regardless of where they were moved. Kinda like the 6 folders above your disks in explorer on Win10

 

[mikeymikec]

My previous post was a set of instructions to move the whole master / user folder (e.g. C:\users\username), not say a user's 'Documents' folder.