Re: Migrate "Documents and Settings" folder from one drive to another

I would strongly recommend to test this on a test server first.
I'm not so sure that the
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT
\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ProfilesDirectory
is the only place in the registry which you'll have to change, but
I've never tested it.

If you are roaming profiles, why change the location of the
Documents and settings folder at all?
Deleting the cached copy of the profile ensures that your server
will never contain very many profiles.
_________________________________________________________
Vera Noest
MCSE, CCEA, Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
TS troubleshooting: http://ts.veranoest.net
___ please respond in newsgroup, NOT by private email ___

Christopher Martin <christopher_martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on 28
dec 2006 in microsoft.public.windows.terminal_services:

After looking at that suggested document, it seemed the solution
was simple, if Roaming profiles are in use. Get all your users
logged off before doing this or stuff could change or be lost.

Firstly, if you don't have roaming profiles, set them up. Use NT
backup to backup the profile directories (typically c:\Documents
and Settings) on the terminal server. Restore the profiles of
the users to be moved on the file server you want to provide the
roaming profiles (NOT to the Documents and Settings directory on
the file server! To a share). Then, set the "Terminal Services
User Profile" path to:

\\<file server>\<share that contains profiles>\<path to
profiles>\%username%

You can either paste it in user by user or script it depending
on how many users you have and how lazy you're feeling.

Then, log on as administrator to the terminal server and delete
all the user profiles you want moved to a new location. Then
edit the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ProfilesDirectory

Set that key to the new path. Setting this to a mapped drive
will not work!

I highly recommend using the backup you made before to create
the new folder and restore the Default and All Users folders
there too.

After that, get a user to log in. What should happen is the OS
will create a new profile folder in the new path and populate it
from the roaming version, thus making all the adjustments
required to shift the user and preserving their preferences.

Now, while this is fairly straight forward it could be automated
very simply. Why a Documents and Settings move wizard hasn't
already been produced is quite beyond me. It seems a very simple
tool to produce that would allow terminal server administrators
and power users (who are tuning their systems) alike to move
these folders off the OS disk.



Vera Noest [MVP] wrote:
The only supported way to change the location of the Documents
and Settings folder is during an unattended setup of the OS.

There is an unsupported way of doing this, described here:

236621 - Cannot Move or Rename the Documents and Settings
Folder http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=236621

As an alternative, you could define a roaming profile on a
network share, and configure your Terminal Servers with the
following setting in a GPO:

Computer Configuration - Administrative templates - System -
User profiles
"Delete cached copies of roaming profiles"

_________________________________________________________
Vera Noest
MCSE, CCEA, Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
TS troubleshooting: http://ts.veranoest.net
___ please respond in newsgroup, NOT by private email ___

Christopher Martin <christopher_martin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote on
28 dec 2006 in microsoft.public.windows.terminal_services:

We are currently trying to address performance issues on our
primary terminal server. We have expanded the machine's CPU
and memory as far as it will go, and we have decided to focus
on disk I/O performance.

We have installed a RAID controller and tray of disks, and
have moved paging and system temp folders to the new drive,
but we now want to migrate the "Documents and Settings" folder
from its current home on C: drive to the new chunk of disk.

I couldn't find a migration tool that did what we needed, but
I believe that all we need to do is backup the directories
using NTBackup, then restore with the same paths to a new
folder and then change HKLM\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows
NT\\CurrentVersion\\ProfileList to the new directory. Will
this work?

Is there an automated tool for moving profile directories to
another drive?

Thanks,

Chris M
.

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