Can anyone tell me the reg keys or Group Policy areas which I should ammend that will allow me to move all users profiles permenantly from C:\documents and settings to D:\documents and settings ... this is so I can create a separate partition for all our laptops with everyones setting and documents away from the rest of the OS and programmes ... thanks in advance

G'day Tony, what coincidence. I spent 6 hours yesterday doing this, successfully too I might add. All though I had to change about 50 paths in about a dozen locations it maybe possable that the two main ones, Hivelist and Volatile Environment may have been all I needed to do. There are now about 7 Shell Folders and User Shell Folders keys that I made changes too plus several other keys that I changed to get my cache folders seperate and out of the profiles area. These are the locations that I changed, some of the Shell and User Shell Folders paths changed automatically; HkCR\Volatile Environment , this changes the main path [also in HkC\S-1-5-21, your user key and will auto change when the first is changed] HkLm\System\ControlSet001\Control\Hivelist This tells where the NtUser.dat and UsrClass.dat will be stored for each user plus where the Registry files are kept [I didn't change the path to those ones] Then you have Shell Folders and User Shell Folders located in their usual places in HkCR and HkLM plus now also in.... HkU\.Default\Soft..\Micro..\Wind..\Current..\Explorer and the same path for these subkeys \S-1-5-18 [Registry file backup paths] \S-1-5-19 [Local Service] \S-1-5-20 [Network Service] \S-1-5-21biglongnumber [Username] If you are successfull be WARNED, all former settings will be gone when you log back in, that is your Desktop, sStart Menu, Favorite, Documents but the old paths and files etc will still be intact. Most other Registry stuff will remain intact as well [programs, extensions etc.. I had to reset all my Desktop settings all over again then I discoverd that my username became username.computername. I had to create a new user to delete myself then reinvent myself all over again losing the .computername at the end of my name. Many other paths to program installations auto changed too which was a relief. The last time I tried this a few weeks ago, unsuccessfully, it left me reinstalling Windows again as I locked myself out but I got it right this time. As I said it may just be the Hivelist and Volatile Environment keys that need to be changed and the rest might follow [I thought of this later of course and did not try it] Tread carefully if you do this, maybe one step at a time might be an idea. NOTE, I don't know if everybody has the S-1-5-18 to 21 keys with these numbers, they may be different for other XP users but I would like to know anyway, thanks. It will help me explain things like this further to people

p.s. I was then able to delete the Documents and Settings folder after that, I hated the name [too long] and location of it which is why I did all this. The new location is \Windows\Profiles\

Hi "Ronnie Ratt", thanks a million for these extra tips, I had been trying things along these lines but was sceptical about taking it too far ... it has worked correctly and we are already deploying our laptop users with Novell's iFolder synchronising their DOCS on the D: partition os their laptops ... this is excellant - GOOD WORK !!!! and thanks again ...

Thanks Tony for letting me know that it worked. I did discover one or two small programs had to be reinstalled but no big deal on that. I also discovered that a Registry tweak I installed before I did this that wouldn't work miraculously decided to work after doing this without me doing anything. So far it has all held together and looks like I got it right.