How to Move Documents and Settings default location in Windows XP

If you have Windows XP installed in your computer, the default location of your Documents and Settings folder is usually in the same partition as where your system is installed. For example, if your windows is installed in C:/Windows, then your user profile will probably be located in C:/Documents and Settings. Many people somehow find it quite dumb to put their user profiles in the same partition as the system. If anything happen with your windows, for instance, an unexpected crash occurs that requires you to format your system partition, you may lose all your important data and files stored in your user profile.

 

So, for my preference of the first must-do-step after installing the fresh new OS on my computer is always to change the default location of the user profile. Don’t worry, the following steps are very easy to follow. In brief, you’re just going to change some registry sub-keys, and the rest is just to relog and copy the user profile to your preferred new location.

How to Move Documents and Settings default location in Windows XP

0.  [Optional step but strongly recommended] Create a system restore point for backup in case if you’ve done anything seriously wrong in the following steps, you can restore your computer in safe mode.

1. Go to Start, Run, type in regedit and hit enter. This is to open Registry Edit.

2. Navigate toHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.

3. Under this key, there will be some number of profiles (usually 6), each of these which represents a user name that you will find under C:\Documents and Settings.

4. Click on each Profile key entry and look at the value ProfileImagePath to identify which one represents your username.

5. Edit this ProfileImagePath value that represents your username and change the path to where you want to move your Documents and Settings folder to. In my case, I wanted to move my Documents and Settings folder from C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME to D:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME. So I change the path to D:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME and save it.

6. Now export the whole profile key that contains this value. Export and save the registry file to any location, but not in the C drive. When you finish the export, open the exported reg file with notepad and look at the output file, it should look something like this:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-220523388-484763869-725345543-1003]
“ProfileImagePath”=”D:\\Documents and Settings\\USERNAME”
“Sid”=hex01,05,00,00,00,00,00,05,15,00,00,00,7c,eb,24,0d,dd,e8,e4,1c,07,e5,3b,\2b,eb,03,00,00
“Flags”=dword00000000
“State”=dword00000100
“CentralProfile”=”"
“ProfileLoadTimeLow”=dword79B23756
“ProfileLoadTimeHigh”=dword05g7b13t
“RefCount”=dword00000001
“RunLogonScriptSync”=dword00000030
“OptimizedLogonStatus”=dword0000000b

7. Delete everything below ProfileImagePath, and it should now look like this:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-220523388-484763869-725345543-1003]
“ProfileImagePath”=”D:\\Documents and Settings\\USERNAME”

8. Now restart your computer. Do a full restart, but not just logging off and on. Sign into the Administrator account after restart.

9. Copy C:\Documents and Settings\Username folder to the new path location you’ve previously set in the registry. In this case, it should be D:\Documents and Settings\Username.

10. Log off the Administrator account and log onto your User account

11. Run the registry file you’ve previously exported (with .reg extension) by right-clicking it and choose merge.

12. Restart the computer again and logon to your User account.

13. You may now try to delete the old user account folder in C:\Documents and Settings\Username.

14. If there’s no error in the deleting process, then congratulation, you’ve successfully moved your documents and settings location and all work fine.

If windows prompt you an error message saying that you cannot delete it because something in the folder is still running by the system, then you must have done something wrong in the previous steps. Open Regedit and go back toHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList.Check if you have the miss spell the directory name, and also make sure you have relog your account in order to take effect.

If you’ve received such error, I should say it’s too bad. Windows seems doesn’t like this approach and shows you this error message that basically disallow the upgrade process. You will not be able to upgrade your Windows unless you get this fixed:

1. Open RegEdit and navigate HKEY/Microsoft/Winodws NT/CurrentVersion/ProfileList. Change ProfileDirectory (in Windows XP, it’sProfileImagePath) registry key back to the default directory in the partition where your system located. For example, if your windows is installed in C:/ then change it the key to C:/Users.
2. Start the Windows Update or Windows Anytime Upgrade process. Now it should work just fine as the compatibility check will pass and you’ll once again be eligible for the upgrade.
3. When you’ve finished your upgrade, before you relog your user account, change theProfile Directory registry key back to where you’ve previously set.