XP Docs and Settings Oddity

It's prolly all hidden pr0n
I used TweakUI (do a search at microsoft.com) to move my my documents folder to somewhere else. You can do loads of other nice usefull stuff with it aswell.

BangOut said:

I recently purchased 5 Sony Vaios for the school lab and while they may be nice machines, their two 200 GB drives came partitioned in a rather paltry fashion.

The Windows XP partition is a mere 13 GB... certainly enough for the OS and a few programs but I noticed the kids were getting 'out of disk space' problems.

I traced the leeching to the Documents and Settings folder. 7 of the 12.5 GB being used belong to Docs and Settings. With about 8 users, some are as large as 1 or 2 GB each.

Unless I could tell Windows to move my users' docs and settings folders, does this not seem a bit odd that users (with only a couple files in their folders) are taking up so much room?

...in dire need of help... thanks!

Click to expand...

what is the rest of the space going to?

I'm forever finding crap in the "Documents and Settings/{username}/Local Settings/Temp" folder that just doesn't get cleared out properly. Don't forget that anything put on the desktop also resides in "Documents and Settings/{username}"

I'm almost positive you can move the documents and settings folders (even to another machine if the accounts belong to a domain), but I don't know the specifics on doing that with MS-provided tools.

However, if you're comfortable with RegEdit and want to do it manually... I'll abbreviate HKeyLocalMachine\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ as HKLM\S\MS\WNT\CV in the following

HKLM\S\MS\WNT\CV\Explorer\Shell Folders - locations for the "all users" common folders (desktop, start menu, etc.)
HKLM\S\MS\WNT\CV\ProfileList - The ProfilesDirectory value is probably what you're after
HKLM\S\MS\WNT\CV\ProfileList\{big weird string} - Individual profiles (whose GUID is the big weird string) I imagine you'll want to change the ProfileImagePath value for

I'm a doctor who hasn't taken this medicine, so try it on an "unimportant" machine first (backing up the reg first, of course), but I think it should be painless. Just put in the new path you want to use. I'd do it as follows:
Create a new dummy account
Change ProfilesDirectory (the middle key)
Create another dummy account
Log in as second dummy, and verify that its profile info was created where you specified rather than C:\Documents and Settings
Copy the profile folder for the first dummy account to the new location
Change the ProfileImagePath for the first dummy account
Log in as first dummy, and verify that it is using the new location (copy some files to the desktop or something)

If that works, it should be short work to switch 8 users over. Just copy & paste like a monkey on fire.

Edit: It should be ok to leave the "All Users" stuff alone, unless you have a reason to want to move it.

I used to use TweakUI when I used Win98, and I don't remember it having and features for moving system folders. I had read somewhere that it wasn't recommended for NT core OSes, so I didn't try it when I moved to 2k - is there a new version now?

Dare i recommend that you reformat one of them to your likeing and then image it to the other pc's HDs. Saves time...even if it is a pain to do...you only have to do it once.

I used tweakui on win 98, and I've been using the same version on xp with no problems as of yet (fingers crossed!)

Are you just trying to find what files are taking up all the space on the pc? Cause I have a nice tool that lets you see just where all the fat files are.

dir /s /os

Right click -> properties on the folders inside a user's profile, and pay attention to total size listed. The space has to be allocated to one of those folders.

BangOut said:

Well hell

I downloaded it, and the one thing it didn't want to do is move special windows folders (such as documents and settings)

:|

Click to expand...

You should be able to do this without a problem in tweakUI, however you need to remember that all tweakUI does is changes the 'magic code' in the registry to point windows to a different folder to use for that Special Folder. it does NOT move the files from the old location! you have to move those files yourself. If you change any special folder, you need to etiher copy or delete the files from the old location. I.E. if i change the temporary internet files folder to be C:\TIF, windows would now make that folder 'magical' giving it the features of the normal temp internet files folder, and would place any subseqent browser cache files in there. However, the original C:\windows\temporary internet fiels will still exist, so you need to move or delete the contents of that folder or all that stuff will stay stuck there.

Take the 10 out - it's only the "all users" folders that appear to need to be done individually. Each individual user seems to need just one change for the whole profile (ProfileImagePath; 8*5), and one more change per machine (ProfilesDirectory; 1*5). That means replacing %SystemDrive% with D: 45 times; do as you like, but installing partition magic 5 times and adjusting each machine will probably take longer (and uninstalling - don't leave it there), and might blow your support contract.

I'm havign the same problem now. "my documents" eats up 4gb(!!!) of space on my windows parition while all other folders(including windows) harldy use 1 gb. I cant allocate what's using up so much space, does anyone know how to fix this?

gah, never mind, it's the temp fodler eating up space....