[BabylenTatarsky]

Basically my SDD is going to waste.

My rig is from the HardwareHeaven GOTY competition, and seriously kicks some major ass. But the likes of My Documents (including saved games and data files from various games), My Pictures, My Websites, and all that kinda stuff are clogging up my C:\ drive.

I wanna start over. Get rid of everything that's on there and just have Windows on there. Nothing else. Sure I use Firefox everyday, and play Football Manager a lot, which would benefit from being on the SSD, but I don't mind. Everything else can go on the 3TB D:\ drive (or even the 1TB external F:\ drive.)

Is it possible to configure Windows 7 in such a way? Preferably DURING INSTALLATION so I don't have to mess about with the registry AFTER it's all set up.

Infact, any way that's easy. Gotta be fresh install though. C:\ drive is clogged to hell right now. Needs a good format.

Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium

(Or I could borrow 64 bit Ultimate if required.)

Would love a quick answer and guide so I can print it out and do it tomorrow morning.

Thanks in advance.

[Jac]

I have all my 'user' folders on a separate drive. Rather, all my media folders are on a separate drive and I just point the user folder shortcuts on the start menu to these folders.

[BabylenTatarsky]

Okay. And in "Libraries" too, I assume?

[Jac]

That's what I mean, the libraries. Personally I don't use the 'User' folder - I just point the Start Menu folders to the media folders I have created.

[Tipstaff]

There are certain folders that you cannot move, and that is by design (such as AppData). Any folder that you can move within the Users folder will have a "Location" tab visible when you right-click the properties of it.

What I tend to do is create an exact copy, path wise, of the Users folder on the C: the drive onto whatever drive I intend to save on. On my gaming rig this would be D:\Users\Tipstaff. Then I just change the location via the properties tab for each folder. So, instead of C:\Users\Tipstaff\Pictures as in the attached pic I change it to D:\Users\Tipstaff\Pictures, then hit "Move".

One thing to note: the first time you move the folders you will see a duplicate folder show up in your Users folder. Most times this temporary, and will disappear once you reboot, or log off/log in your user. However, sometimes this can get messed up thanks to the hidden desktop.ini file, so you may need to delete the dupe afterwards.

[BabylenTatarsky]

Okay might format later.

Thanks for the help.

Seems remarkably easy!

[Judas]

yup.... actually the easiest way to do this just go into the user folder.. .and select the folders you want to have moved somewhere else... CUT them.. past them into the location of choice.. and voilla... all locations and information are automatically updated to reflect the changes you wish..

occasionally doing this leaves ghost folders like tipstaff mentioned... deleteing them automatically on reboot or sometimes leaving them for you to delete (they should appear as blank looking folders.

I've been able to do that every since windows XP's "My picture/my documents/my videos" folders appeared... cut.. paste.... done

[caqde]

There is a command called mklink that you might be interested in especially when you have an SSD that could help you with these issues. This command will allow you to create what is called a symbolic link. Basically with this you would move a folder to another location and at the original location you will create a symbolic folder that points to the actual folder that contains the data.

EX: original location - C:\program files\bioshock\ move that to D:\bioshock and create a symbolic folder at C:\program files\ called bioshock pointing to D:\bioshock now when you go to C:\program files\bioshock\ you actually see D:\bioshock.

Command to do that from the command line would be - mklink /D "C:\program files\bioshock" "D:\bioshock"

This is really useful for programs like steam that take up a lot of space. Make sure you are running the Command Line as Administrator when you do this.


NTFS symbolic link - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia <- about mklink