Change Default directory of Documents and Settings?

Let's say I have Windows installed on drive C, however I install all of my programs on the D drive, and I keep my user profile on the D drive as well (things like My Documents). How can I have Windows use those folders instead of the ones on the C drive?

Solution 1:

Here is a tutorial on moving the Documents and Settings folder to a second hard disk.

Excerpt:

1) Set up your network and your network drive. Make sure that it is assigned a particular letter for each machine. (Assign permanent drive letters under Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management --> Disk Management. This should work for network drives as well. Someone correct me if I'm wrong; again, I haven't done this before.

2) On your computers, open Windows Explorer. From My Computer , right-click on My Documents and select properties. The first thing that pops up is a "target folder location" screen. Select "move" and pick the desired folder on your networked drive (i.e., computer 1's documents, computer 2's documents, etc.). You may have to physically copy everything over, but then it will be on the networked drive and everything should work smoothly. That is, in the future, Windows will go to the target location whenever you look in "My Documents"

The article also notes that step 1 may not be required.

Solution 2:

The easiest way to this is to:

1. Go to the start menu
2. Right click on the my documents folder
3. Select properties
4. Change the target directory to the desired folder

Solution 3:

I've done this on Vista, it might be similar on XP.

1. Right click on "Documents" in the start menu.
2. Change to the location tab
3. Edit the path.

Again this is Vista, it might be different on XP (try user Accounts).