Thread: All Programs menu broken

Moving those directories will not work,

The only luck I had with this was on a clean install, the very first thing I did, was to change the Environments Variable to the E:\Users directory.

Problem is, some software will still recreate the C:\users directory and save it's setting here.

It's basically a losing battle.

Have you tried using symbolic links? Have a look at this, Link Shell Extension (LSE). I also like to keep writes off my SSD, its really easy, you just move the folder to where you want and drop a symbolic link in its place.

What is the advantage of a symbolic link over a Junction?
Are they equivalent except one is for files the other for directories?
Oh, and I already use the Link Shell Extension, its awesome.

What is really stupid in this particular case is that if you go to properties on C:\Users\<username>\appdata\Roaming it has a location tab, to automatically move it, built into Windows 7. But attempting to move it in the GUI always fails because if you are logged in there will be files open in that directory. So in order to move it I had to log out, then log in as administrator, changing privileges so I could then move it to another drive & replace it with a Junction as admin (using the LSE to create junctions). So Microsoft has obviously thought about moving this folder in order for it to have a Location tab, yet moving it gives you problems after a crash.

Originally Posted by reghakr

Moving those directories will not work,
The only luck I had with this was on a clean install, the very first thing I did, was to change the Environments Variable to the E:\Users directory.

What "Environments Variable"?

Are you refering to the USERPROFILE environment variable?

And moving it worked for a month or so until the crash... Maybe because I replaced the old folders with junctions, so if an application used a path in C:\Users\glugglug\AppData\Roaming it would actually be accessing E:\Users\glugglug\AppData\Roaming because C:\Users\glugglug\AppData\Roaming was a junction.

Heres a quote on the differences, I can tell you that symbolic links work for me.

Junctions are wormholes in the tree structure of a directed graph. By browsing a Junction a maybe far distant location in the file system is made available. Modifying, Creating, Renaming and Deleting files within a junction tree structure operates at the junction target, i.e. if you delete a file in a Junction it is deleted at the original location.
Symbolic Links are to files what Junctions are to folders in that they are both transparent and Symbolic. Transparency means that an application can access them just as they would any other file, Symbolism means that the data objects can reside on any available volume, i.e. they are not limited to a single volume like Hardlinks. Symbolic Links differ from Shortcuts in that they offer a transparent pathway to the desired data object, with a shortcut (.lnk), something has to read and interpret the content of the shortcut file and then open the file that it references (i.e. it is a two step process). When an application uses a symlink it gains immediate access to the data object referenced by the symlink (i.e. it is a one step process).

There are some files/folders that you just cant move out of the appdata folder, like the credentials folder in Microsoft. But most of it can, especially your browser profiles. I have all my browser caches on a RAMdisk.
Move the TMP and the TEMP folders off the SSD too in the environment variable page.
The MSOCache folder in C: (if you have Office) can also be moved with sym links to free up some space.
Make sure you move the page file off it too. I turn mine off.

What is really stupid in this particular case is that if you go to properties on C:\Users\<username>\appdata\Roaming it has a location tab, to automatically move it, built into Windows 7.

Im still playing around with all this stuff too, I hadnt noticed there was this option. Thanks.