Can I move Windows 7 C:\Users more easily using 2 installs of Windows 7? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate:
Moving users folder on Windows Vista/Seven to another partition

I am trying to move my Windows 7 C:\Users folder off of my 64GB SSD onto another drive (A partition on an hard drive), something like E:\Users (it's relative, keep reading). I made an attempt using these instructions only to not be able to log in as the default user, and upon rebooting, not being able to log into Windows at all.

I was able to restore it using the restore instructions at the end of that article.

But I am now thinking. I have 2 drives in this computer with full versions of Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit: One on my SSD, and another on a Caviar Black hard drive. Both versions work fine, and I can boot into either.

Given that, do I need to use a boot CD to accomplish this? Can I just boot the hard drive and use that to create the junction?

If so, are the instructions the same, just skipping the system restore utility?

I am thinking something like this would work, but really want someone who knows what they're talking about to help me. Here's the plan:

1. Create a system restore point on the SSD
2. Boot into the hard drive
3. Copy E:\Users to J:\Users (whatever the relevant SSD folder is to a new folder on a "Data" partition on the Caviar Black hard drive) - making sure that all hidden files and system files are available
4. Delete E:\Users (the SSD folder)
5. Create the junction - I.e. mklink /J E:\Users J:\Users (old source first, new destination last)

Will this work? Is there anything different I need to do since this isn't using the system restore utility?

Is the system "smart enough" to figure out that making a symlink from E:\Users to J:\Users will have different drive letters when E:\ becomes C:\ (as in, when I boot into the SSD)?

The whole reason is that my SSD is already up to about 50GB used out of 60 GB available. I've read performance decreases when you pass 70% or so of space used, and I'd also like to minimize the read/writes to the SSD.

Any other advice related to this is certainly welcome!

Solution 1:

You'll be fine, a symlink in this case is a junction. If you were to go to C:\Users after using the junction you'll notice that on the address bar of the explorer window will till say C:\Users even though it's pointed at J:\Users, Windows won't think otherwise.

Also make sure the junction you are pointing to has the same Drive Letter on both OS' just for the sake of compatibility.