Relocation of the Users and the ProgramData directories to a drive other than the drive that has the Windows directory

This article describes the changes in policy for the relocation of the Users directory and the ProgramData directory to a drive other than the %systemdrive% drive in Windows operating systems.

Original product version: В Windows 10 — all editions, Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2012 R2
Original KB number: В 949977

Using the ProgramData setting to redirect folders to a drive other than the system volume will block your ability to upgrade to future versions of Windows.

By changing the default location of the user profile directories or program data folders to a volume other than the system volume, you cannot service your Windows installation. Any updates, fixes, or service packs cannot be applied to the installation. We recommend that you do not change the location of the user profile directories or program data folders.

Beginning with Windows 10, OS upgrades are supported even if user profiles are redirected to another drive. For example, if you are using Windows 8.1 with ProfilesDirectory set to D:\, you can upgrade to Windows 10.

More information

%systemdrive% is defined as the drive that contains the Windows directory. There are various reasons why you may want to relocate the Users directory or the ProgramData directory to other drives.

For Windows, the most common reasons are as follows:

• It is easier to back up data from a single drive and from a drive that contains only user files.
• It is easier to rebuild the operating system drive on a user’s computer if user data is located on a separate volume. In this case, the drive that contains the Windows directory can be formatted, and Windows can be reinstalled without having to worry about how to remove user data.

For Windows Server, the most common reason is as follows:

• There are performance improvements when you relocate the Users directory and the ProgramData directory to a drive other than the operating system drive.

For information about how to use the answer file setting, see Answer Files Overview.

If you use the FolderLocations unattend setting to move user data to a location other than the %systemdrive% drive, some servicing components may not be installed. These components may include critical updates, security updates, hotfixes, and service packs.

Information that is documented in the current release of the Windows AIK and the Windows OPK

The Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) and the Windows OEM Preinstallation Kit (OPK) for Windows and Windows Server contain documentation warnings that are related to the usage of the Profile Directory and ProgramData unattend settings. These are the settings that let you relocate the Users directory and the ProgramData directory to locations other than their default locations. This includes other drives.

These warnings were included before the servicing stack update (update 937287) was available. This update addresses the issue that is discussed in the warning text. Windows AIK and the Windows OPK documentation reads as follows. You cannot upgrade such installations to the next version of Windows.

Setting information from the Windows AIK and Windows OPK documentation:

The Profiles Directory setting

The Profiles Directory setting specifies the path of the user profile folder.

Use this setting to move the user profile folder (typically %SYSTEMDRIVE%\Users) to another location during Setup or Sysprep. The destination path can be on a volume other than the system drive, as long as it meets the following requirements:

• It must be on an NTFS volume.
• It must not be the path of another operating system user profile folder.
• It must not contain any serviceable components.

This setting can be used to keep system data separate from user data. If Windows is reinstalled on the system volume, a user who has administrative rights can manually recover data from this location.

Using ProfilesDirectory to redirect folders to a drive other than the system volume blocks upgrades. Using ProfilesDirectory to point to a directory that is not the system volume will block SKU upgrades and upgrades to future versions of Windows. For example, if you use Windows 8 together with ProfilesDirectory set to D:\, you cannot upgrade to Windows 8 Pro or to the next version of Windows. The servicing stack does not handle cross-volume transactions, and it blocks upgrades.

The ProgramData setting

The ProgramData setting specifies the path of the program data folder.

These settings should be used only in a test environment. By changing the default location of the user profile directories or program data folders to a volume other than the System volume, you cannot service your Windows installation. Any updates, fixes, or service packs cannot be applied to the installation. Microsoft recommends that you do not change the location of the user profile directories or program data folders. This is especially true for Microsoft Store apps. Changing the location of %programdata% will cause errors when you install, uninstall, or update these apps.

If you use the unattend settings to set up the operating systems that are listed in this article, we will provide commercially reasonable efforts to support your scenario.

How to rename User Folder in Windows 10?

I recently upgrade from windows 8.1 single language to windows 10 home single language on my computer. But the user folder has a wrong user name. Is there a way to change it? I have gone through settings and the control panel (user accounts) and see nothing there. I have read that you can delete the account and set up a new one, but do not want to do that.

I use a Microsoft account user.

what is the most easy and safe way?

Replies (19) 

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

As has been said officially you cannot rename the user folder once it has been created, there are guides to do so but this is unsupported and could potentially cause problems.

The safest option is to create a new user using a Local Account with the name of the account being what you want the folder to be because that is what is used. Make it an Administrator account.

Then switch the current Main account to a Local Account, this releases the Microsoft Account credentials.

Then switch the new account to being a Microsoft Account where it will ask what credentials are to be used. It will however leave the folder name as it was originally set up. You can copy files and folders from one user profile to the other.

There is a way to copy the entire profile from the old account to the new but it cannot be done whilst either account is active. In that case you would need to have a 3rd temporary account to log on with (also Admin) to do the copy then delete it afterwards.

I only found this out because my user profile folder was «Hairy», not good! In fact with this system I set up Windows 10 using a Local Account in the 1st place then changed it to an MA after the profile had been created.

23 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

I’m in the midst of setting things up after a clean install of 10 Pro, and it’s named my user folder to g_ala, the first part of my e-mail address used to login to my Microsoft account.

It also slapped something random on for the computer name, instead of how Windows 7 and earlier did, use your first name with -PC or something added. So I had to fix that. Next will be getting this changed from an MS account to a local one, then changing the @#%%@^ user folder name.

Why does Microsoft have to break things that were working perfectly fine?

39 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

Just bear in mind that actually changing the active folder can cause problems.

If you use an unsupported solution you end up giving a getout for MS if ANYTHING does not work properly. As said I now set up my computer with a local account in the 1st instance to set the User folder how I want it then convert that to a MS account after the profile is created.

2 people found this reply helpful

Was this reply helpful?

Sorry this didn’t help.

Great! Thanks for your feedback.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback, it helps us improve the site.

How satisfied are you with this reply?

Thanks for your feedback.

I’ve renamed user folders on previous versions of Windows. Never had any problems. I did them by searching the Registry for all instances of the old path and changing them to the new path.

With 10, after changing my account from the Administrator account, I also had to look up how to get to the full featured Users control panel in order to change the login name. The «modern» version is pretty, and not too useful with its «feature reduction».

Finally got all the drivers installed, got the little hack written into the Registry to force Device Manager to give me the Policies tab on drive controllers so I can make it NOT show the drives connected to the Marvell SATA controller as removable. There’s *another* iron ball MS has dropped on their foot. Haven’t seen *that bug* since Windows XP after SATA first was introduced.

The worst problem by far with 10 was the non-functioning networking, wired and/or wireless, many people had. They didn’t get that resolved for nearly a year, with the July 12, 2016 Servicing Stack Update. It was so bad they had to release the fix for both RTM and 1511 because people on RTM needed functioning Internet in order to get the 1511 update. Then after the 1607 Anniversary Update, there was a hotfix released that for some broke networking again.

How many years has Microsoft been doing TCP-IP networking? How could they drop that ball, several times?

powershell add user permission to a folder in windows server

So I’ve got the next path: C:\folder1\folder2\fileName . Looking in the security tab on the C:\folder1 there is Alice username with full permissions. But going to the C:\folder1\folder2\fileName Alice isn’t there yet. How can I insert with powershell v2 Alice member recursively in C:\folder1 so that all the files under root C:\folder1 will also have the same Alice username set with full permissions.

But it doesn’t seem to apply for the C:\folder1\folder1\fileName. Guess I’m trying to apply permissions for Alice, which doesn’t exist yet in the last fileName item.

2 Answers 2

As you can see in the FileSystemAccessRule documentation, the class has a property for inheritance. You have to add the property to your $properties

You could also recursively add the permissions by getting all child items with the Get-ChildItems cmdlet and piping them to the Set-Acl cmdlet like they have done in an examle in the documentation on microsoft site here: Set-Acl. Look at «Example 3: Apply a security descriptor to multiple files» or read below (copied from the page):

These commands apply the security descriptors in the File0.txt file to all text files in the C:\Temp directory and all of its subdirectories.

The first command gets the security descriptor of the File0.txt file in the current directory and uses the assignment operator (=) to store it in the $NewACL variable.

The first command in the pipeline uses the Get-ChildItem cmdlet to get all of the text files in the C:\Temp directory. The Recurse parameter extends the command to all subdirectories of C:\temp. The Include parameter limits the files retrieved to those with the «.txt» file name extension. The Force parameter gets hidden files, which would otherwise be excluded. (You cannot use «c:\temp*.txt», because the -Recurse parameter works on directories, not on files.)

The pipeline operator (|) sends the objects representing the retrieved files to the Set-Acl cmdlet, which applies the security descriptor in the AclObject parameter to all of the files in the pipeline.

In practice, it is best to use the Whatif parameter with all Set-Acl commands that can affect more than one item. In this case, the second command in the pipeline would be » Set-Acl -AclObject $NewAcl -WhatIf «. This command lists the files that would be affected by the command. After reviewing the result, you can run the command again without the Whatif parameter.

This is an example using «.txt» files but can be modified to apply to directories as well.

Give permissions to files and folders in Windows 10

Original title: REad only

Windows 10 has set all my files and folders to read only. I am not able to turn this off. Is there a trick to this as right clicking and unchecking read only I get you need admin rights message and it doesn’t work. This is causing some games and programs I have to not work correctly.

Replies (24) 

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

* Please try a lower page number.

* Please enter only numbers.

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community. I understand your concern and I’ll be glad to assist you.

Please follow through.

In Windows Explorer, right-click the file or folder you want to work with.

From the pop-up menu, select Properties, and then in the Properties dialog box click the Security tab.

In the Name list box, select the user, contact, computer, or group whose permissions you want to view. If the permissions are dimmed, it means the permissions are inherited from a parent object.

Turn off UAC (User Account Control)

Before you can do anything, you must turn off the UAC, or you will be locked out of the following steps.

1) Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> User Accounts
2) Click «Change User Account Control Settings»
3) Move slider all the way down to «Never Notify»
4) Reboot

2) Take Ownership

Yes take ownership. Even though you are logged on as an Administrator, you can’t change files that don’t belong to you. The Program Files folder is set to the Trusted Installer group and the Administrator doesn’t have the rights to change anything. So now we have to claim all the files and folders.

1) Open Windows Explorer
2) R-Click on Program Files -> Properties -> Security Tab
3) Click Advanced -> Owner
4) Click Edit
5) Select Administrators -> Put a checkmark in Replace owner on subcontainers & objects -> Apply
6) Wait a while.
7) When it finishes, Click OK on all boxes to close everything

3) Fix Permissions

Now that you own the files, you have to give yourself permission to modify them

1) R-Click on Program Files -> Properties -> Security Tab
2) Click Advanced -> Change Permission
3) Select Administrators (any entry) -> Edit
4) Change the Apply To drop down box to This Folder, Subfolder & Files
5) Put check in Full Control under Allow column -> OK -> Apply
6) Wait some more.
7) When it finishes, the dialog boxes may hide behind the Explorer window. Minimize it and click OK on all the the dialog boxes

Hope this post helps. Get back to us for further queries. We are happy to help.