How To Completely Move Users/Program Files/Program Files (x86)/ProgramData (Folders) To Another Partition(s) On Windows 8?
- by Enigma83
I am attempting to move folders
Users
Program Files
Program Files (x86),
ProgramData (at the root of the C drive) to at least 2 other partitions, preferably on a fresh install.
I have read that there are methods for doing this post-install, but it seems like it would be a bit more tedious to do things that way. I want to move the 2 Program Files folders to another partition on the same HDD, and Users/ProgramData will go to yet another partition on same HDD.
I have done a bit of research on this, read up on some things that involved booting into Audit Mode, using the RoboCopy command to copy folders via booting into my Windows 8 USB drive, creating NTFS junctions/symbolic links, Registry edits, as well as accomplishing this automatically by creating an auto-attend file which Windows Setup processes automatically before the user is ever booted in for the 1st time.
I tried this morning and now have a basic installation in which programs like Internet Explorer fail to open, certain files can't be found/opened (even if I click on them directly), an example is Regedit.
Also, I can't run the Command/DOS (CMD) prompt as Administrator (or otherwise, as any other user), can't activate the real Administrator account or open any of the Administrative Tools (despite having added them to my Start Screen).
So far I have only tried RoboCopy-ing Program Files and Program Files (x86) so far, creating junction points for them, and editing the Registry in the relevant locations. This is what I'm left with now.
I also found the following blog article which describes how to do this for Windows 7
So, where should I go from here and where can I find more information?
And how can this be done without disabling the Metro apps, which I've read will stop working if you move ProgramData.
Once I have everything moved, where do I install programs to? Do I tell them to install to
C:\Program Files\Program Files (x86)
or to the junctioned/symbolic-linked partition/drive? I plan to test in VMware virtual machines from here on until things are working correctly, while using a baseline default install for daily tasks.
