Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Owlbread]

Hello everyone, I've spent most of today sorting out my HDD and SSD for my new computer but I still need to sort out a few issues related to the locations of some of my files. It's just organisational stuff, but I'm a bit obsessive about this sort of thing.

This is how I plan on organising my files:

System: Just my SSD organised into 1 partition, this is where my OS is installed. It's also where I boot from.

Programs Partition: Where all of my programs that aren't games will go.

Games Partition: All of my games will be installed here, including steam libraries. I'll have a separate section for savegames.

Media Partition: I'm going to have all of my pictures, movies and music in this drive.

Documents Partition: This is for any notepad files, word documents or PDFs and the like.

Misc. Partition: This is for anything that can't be classified.

You can see a rough screenshot here.

This is where it gets complicated. I'd like to reroute my main program files directories from "System" to "Programs Partition". I only have drivers and essential windows files on my SSD, so I'll probably just rename the original folders "Essential Programs" or something. I'd then like to transfer my User files onto Misc. to go into a larger "Personal" file, where it would include my desktop, favourites, contacts, links, searches etc. You know, unclassified libraries.

I would then transfer My Pictures, Music and Videos into my Media Drive into their own respective sections. AppData would go into "Programs Partition" while Documents would go into my Documents Partition. Anything else goes in Misc.

There's a problem I keep finding though when games like putting their savegames into my documents folder. I would like to change my "My Games" location by putting it somewhere in my Gaming Partition, same goes for anything else that magically pops up in there. I'd like to keep my Documents folder specifically for documents.

That's... about it, really. Would anyone be able to tell me how to do this safely and without causing a lot of problems with my computer?

[XXSockXX]

Are you cloning your old HD or are you re-installing everything? If you just reinstall the programs and select your programs partition, they should go there. Some stuff will still go to the old folder, but most of it should be ok.

Moving your "My X" folders should be relatively easy, moving the default program folder looks a bit more complicated.

Honestly, I have given up on making that many partitions, I never got a really clean separation out of it and it's not as useful for speed as it used to be. I also never use the "My Stuff" folders to manage my files, but rather use my own system.

[Owlbread]

Thank you Sock, though moving the default program folder looks complicated the guy asking the question has very helpfully detailed exactly what he did. I hope I can use it. There's just a few small issues with stuff like AppData and those dastardly little files popping up in my Documents folder.

This is a fresh installation, nothing is being cloned.

[XXSockXX]

It's just articles I googled, I remembered moving the "My Stuff" folders was easy, but I'm not so sure with the default programs folder and some of the user data. I haven't done that myself and in newer Windows versions the folders are much more important than they used to be, so I hope this doesn't screw anything up.

[Tellemurius]

You can move your user profile onto another partition on your drive that is called a Roaming Profile when your user is not stored onto the local partition. APPDATA cannot be moved from the user, it is impossible with Windows systems and frankly would break the OS if you managed to move it. You cannot fully move the Program Files into another location, Microsoft made sure of that with the Common Files folder which it stores files necessary for the OS to operate.

[Owlbread]

Thank you very much Tellemurius, you have been very helpful. Rather than moving my program files I just rerouted them to another drive where they are working quite well. I've noticed though that my start menu shortcuts often become corrupt. Is there any way to correct that? I've managed to correct my libraries, just not my start menu stuff.

[Tellemurius]

Thank you very much Tellemurius, you have been very helpful. Rather than moving my program files I just rerouted them to another drive where they are working quite well. I've noticed though that my start menu shortcuts often become corrupt. Is there any way to correct that? I've managed to correct my libraries, just not my start menu stuff.

Hmm like the images get corrupted or they arent link to the correct location?

[Owlbread]

They just don't link to the correct location. Actually, now that I'm checking them, sometimes they do. This is quite odd.

[Tellemurius]

They just don't link to the correct location. Actually, now that I'm checking them, sometimes they do. This is quite odd.

hmm, that sounds like a profile issue that its not linking correctly while booting up, i think theres a command script you can make that will update/relink the shortcuts

[XXSockXX]

Do you mean the shortcuts sometimes work and sometimes they don't? Or is it that some work and some don't? If it's the former, it's probably some profile issue I havent encountered yet. If it's the latter it might be just poor programming, where the installer creates a shortcut to the default folder instead of the actual folder. That one you can just fix manually by editing the shortcuts.

[Owlbread]

Do you mean the shortcuts sometimes work and sometimes they don't? Or is it that some work and some don't? If it's the former, it's probably some profile issue I havent encountered yet. If it's the latter it might be just poor programming, where the installer creates a shortcut to the default folder instead of the actual folder. That one you can just fix manually by editing the shortcuts.

Some work and some don't. For instance, steam shortcuts would often break but some of the games would actually work. I'll just edit the shortcuts like you say in that case.

[XXSockXX]

Don't know if it could be a Steam related thing. I have that problem with older software sometimes, if I install it in another folder than the default one.

[foil]

Why not install the program files on the SSD otherwise its kind of defeats the purpose if having to load apps off a normal drive, theres loads of space.