Hey, wondering if what I am trying to do is actually possible? I am making an OEM Asus Windows 7 Ultimate DVD for a system I am building. I intend to use sysprep to make a recovery image, to give it that manufacturer touch, as well as to make restore easier, and to give the person I am building it for an OOBE. Thing is, I do not like to have everything (users data etc...) on the C: drive as restore would wipe this. I want it so that I can create libraries on the D: drive like so: D:\%USERNAME%\Documents, D:\%USERNAME%\Pictures etc... I would like these to auto-create when each time a new user is created (including the first user during OOBE). I dont want Windows to even include the default C: drive folder - I want them to be actually replaced with D: drive ones, so users cannot put their stuff on the C: drive when they use the library folders. Could someone tell me how this might be done... I tried doing it during sysprep stage, thinking it may replicate settings after the user has gone through OOBE, but it doesnt. Anybody help?
Well this isn't automatic but you could use Junction Points before you create the new user Code: After installing windows 7 you will be greeted with a user creation prompt press shift+f10 and you should get a cmd window Copy the Users Profiles onto the Partition you want to use 1. robocopy "C:\Users" "D:\Users" /E /COPYALL /XJ For the User Profiles: 2. rmdir "C:\users" /S /Q 3. mklink /J "C:\Users" "D:\Users" Exit the cmd window Continue to create your user Reboot your machine and you should be good to go Maybe you could try and run a script from setupcomplete that automates this for you.. I have no idea if it would work but its just an idea
Hmm.. I would have just like to have moved the things like Pictures, Music, Documents etc... rather than the entire user profiles - so that in the event of a restore, profiles are fresh, but the data they care about is untouched, without excessive files being stored on the other partition. Using this method I couldnt get it to work, got "File in use... Waiting 30 seconds" errors on NTUser.dat. I have found a way to use an xml file after sysprep to move the Users directory without using symlinks, and failing achieving what I want to do, will have to settle for this, but if anyone can think of a way that achieves exactly what I would like then that would be great. Ideally - the structure would be: D:\%USERNAME%\Documents \Pictures \Music \Video \Downloads etc... And these would be the only locations to show up under "Libraries"... Seems I may have to settle for moving entire user profiles though unless someone has a genius idea very soon
WOW! Glad I didnt have to script all that myself I will give this a try tonight, thank you very much! Ive been looking for something like this all day! Much appreciated! Will report back if I manage to successfully achieve what I want with this
Thank you very much again Urie. This works a treat (so far). Does not seem to work with Hstart, and doesnt appear to run when a "Standard" account is created - so I have embedded it in an .exe alongside another .bat file to execute this script in silent mode, and added an administrator manifest in the hopes this will resolve the Standard account issue. Then what I have done in SysPrep is loaded the "Default User" NTUser.dat hive under HKEY_USERS and added this under Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce. Automatically, and, thanks to .exe ghost mode, invisibly moves the data files I wanted to D:\%USERNAME%. Just gotta see if the exe solution works with Anti-virus, and on standard accounts. Fingers crossed!
Only glad to help if everything works out ok or you alter script to suit your own folders e.c.t. I think you should reply to member on MSFN who wrote the script as with anything we are all here to help but the more information the better