Guide for moving Users, Program Files/(x86), and ProgramData.

[Prestonification]

Moving Users, Program Files, Program Files (x86) **if on 64-BIT** and ProgramData to Secondary Drive for SSD Optimization.

(For fresh install of Windows 7; At User Login creation).

Preston Slade

Begin Windows 7 installation: At the partition selection, Make sure you have formatted the drives and created new partitions if it has not been done). Make sure you install The OS on the Drive you want as the Primary (Windows will set aside some memory for a system partition) . My setup was 64GB SSD Primary – 350Gb HDD Secondary (Primary: C:\ - Secondary: D:\)

After Windows has finished, You will be at the Create User screen.

-Access the Command Prompt menu by pressing 'SHIFT + F10'.

If you need to partition or make sure that your drives have labels, you can run the compmgmt.msc

Then go to disk management and work your way through it assuming you're familiar with the windows environment.

You're going to copy the directories to a new Location/Drive, remove the original directories and make a junction point(link) to prevent any stray files from installing on the primary drive ( It acts like a shortcut from the primary directory to the secondary).

Enter these commands to begin the copying of the directories [robocopy] (Spaces ,Punctuations and Case sensitive). You should see a quick rundown of all the files copying, but it shouldn't take long considering it's a fresh installation and there aren't many files.

robocopy “C:\Users†“D:\Users†/COPYALL /MIR /XJ

robocopy “C:\Program Files†“D:\Program Files†/COPYALL /MIR /XJ

robocopy “C:\Program Files (x86)†“D:\Program Files (x86)†/COPYALL /MIR /XJ

robocopy “C:\ProgramData†“D:\ProgramData†/COPYALL /MIR /XJ

Now enter these commands to begin removing directories [rmdir] and making junctions [mklink].

Note : When removing the “ProgramData†you will hit an error which is normal. You can delete it later after the first boot, some of the files are write protected.

rmdir “C:\Users†/S /Q

mklink /J “C:\Users†“D:\Usersâ€

rmdir “C:\Program Files†/S /Q

mklink /J “C:\Program Files†“D:\Program Filesâ€

rmdir “C:\Program Files (x86)†/S /Q

mklink /J “C:\Program Files (x86)†“D:\Program Files (x86)â€

**You will not make a junction for ProgramData right now just remove as you did with the others.

rmdir “C:\ProgramData†/S /Q

***You should receive an error about the files not being removed correctly or an error code. Ignore it for now.

Type in regedit to change the location in these registries to the new directories.

For Program Files Navigate to-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion (click on the Folder don’t expand it this one only) and edit the ProgramFilesDir and CommonFilesDir as needed (anything that has C:\ in front of it in the data column) just replace it with the drive letter of the drive you moved the folders to which would be D:\. Should be 6 changes in total but just read.

For User Navigate to-

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion(expand this folder)\ProfileList and again edit the paths as needed (If it says C:\ or %System Drive%, just replace it as you did above to the location of the folders).

Exit Regedit and Close Command Prompt and create your account as normal.

Go to your Windows Explorer(window with all of your drives when you go to my computer) and open up your C:\ Drive and make note of the directories you wanted to move; You should see something that looks like a shortcut to them instead. That indicates that they are junctions to where they really are meaning success(almost). Check all the drives you made the changes to and see there are folders.

Now you have to make the Program Data folder visible by changing the folder options to show hidden files and folders.

Hit the ALT key and you should see the toolbar.

Select Tools> Folder Options > View > And under Files and Folders, Select “Show hidden files, folders and drivesâ€. Done.

Check the directories and you should see Program Data visible now. So we can try and delete it. Restart the computer so that the changes to the registry you made earlier can be saved.

For removing the Program Data folder.

Go to C:\ drive, And delete the whole Program Data folder. ** It will ask to continue with administrative permission, Hit continue**. It should be removed. (If it’s not deleting, that means that you did not try to delete it while still in the command prompt before user account setup).

Now for creating a junction for Program Data, run the command.

Press windows key + R key and type cmd.

Enter this command as earlier

mklink /J “C:\ProgramData†“D:\ProgramDataâ€

Finished! After that you should have all your junctions and relocated directories set and you can now use your PC without the worry of filling up your SSD with unwanted data and programs. Even if a program does not allow you to redirect the install of the program, it will automatically be installed without any issues to the alternative drive.

[BenHTBDT]

Excellent guide! I will say that it works basically identically on Windows 8, for those who were interested!

[Flynn]

Why move program files? Tmp and user is a must, but isnt the point of an ssd speed, if your data is on a hdd, then why would you need to move the programs? If anything, all that will happen is your os will be quick but all programs will be right back to the hdd speed again.

Otherwise great guide, dont forget to move your pagefile, and switch the tmp dir over to the hdd as well, along with disabling search, those are what drops the life of your ssd the most. (along with hybernate, pre/superfetch, and of course defrag)

[Prestonification]

Why move program files? Tmp and user is a must, but isnt the point of an ssd speed, if your data is on a hdd, then why would you need to move the programs? If anything, all that will happen is your os will be quick but all programs will be right back to the hdd speed again.

Otherwise great guide, dont forget to move your pagefile, and switch the tmp dir over to the hdd as well, along with disabling search, those are what drops the life of your ssd the most. (along with hybernate, pre/superfetch, and of course defrag)

Because it saves trouble with remaining space on small boot SSD (i.e- 60GB) There are plenty of methods to doing this, but this is just a preferred way of doing things for me. I feel this gives you control over what you want to receive the performance gain as you can create a new folder on the root of the SSD and install whatever there. As for SSD optimizations there are tons and I plan on adding that part in or linking in a source with the same info.

[Flynn]

Why move program files? Tmp and user is a must, but isnt the point of an ssd speed, if your data is on a hdd, then why would you need to move the programs? If anything, all that will happen is your os will be quick but all programs will be right back to the hdd speed again.

Otherwise great guide, dont forget to move your pagefile, and switch the tmp dir over to the hdd as well, along with disabling search, those are what drops the life of your ssd the most. (along with hybernate, pre/superfetch, and of course defrag)

Ah, guess ive never thought about buying an ssd tgats smaller than 256gb lol.

[Prestonification]

Why move program files? Tmp and user is a must, but isnt the point of an ssd speed, if your data is on a hdd, then why would you need to move the programs? If anything, all that will happen is your os will be quick but all programs will be right back to the hdd speed again.

Otherwise great guide, dont forget to move your pagefile, and switch the tmp dir over to the hdd as well, along with disabling search, those are what drops the life of your ssd the most. (along with hybernate, pre/superfetch, and of course defrag)

LOL. Yeah when you're on a budget, just have access to one or just real specific about it, but I've long since received a 128GB Vector as gift so I didn't find it necessary to move the folders just the media like photos, videos, pictures and documents. S

[SkilledRebuilds]

I did this a while ago and its great, I moved users/program files(x86)/program files to my 7200rpm 1tb D:\

Keeping Windows 7 on the SSD, but application installs (taking space) to another drive.

Once I removed the never used hibernation file and did a few tweaks, My C:\ Used space including Windows was 13.3GB, leaving 100GB left over.

Steam/Origin/Standalone Games get put on D:\Games, however BF3 and a few others go to C:\Games

Whatever Applications I DO want on the SSD, get put in c:\SSDPrograms\

Comes in handy.