If you’ve been using computers for a while you may have gotten used to re-installing Windows from scratch every so often because of its self-destructive personality.
For this reason I wanted to find a way to keep all my data files (settings and documents) on a separate partition than the one in which Windows was installed, that way, I could just reformat it and get it over with without having to worry to backup stuff.
Just refusing to put your stuff in “My Documents” isn’t enough because you’ll still lose all your preferences (and in the case of many email programs, all your account information and emails) when you destroy the Windows partition.
There is a place in the registry where the location of a user profile is defined. It is easy to move your profile even if the install of Windows is not clean, but you need at least two users. The profile is not created until the first time you log in, and I find it risky (if not impossible) to move the profile for the user which is currently logged in.
So let’s say you want to move user1’s profile. If you’ve just installed Windows, ensure that you log in with user1, then log out once the hard drive finishes crackling. Now log in as user2 (who must be an administrator) and open up a registry editor.
Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. You will see some keys with weird numbers. There are some short ones (S-#-#-##), then there should be at least two long ones (S-#-#-##-##########-##########-##########-####), which represent real users (in this case user1 and user2). Click on each one and look at the value of ProfileImagePath to find out which user it actually belongs to. By default this value should be something like %SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\
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