Move the Public Folder in Windows Vista
The Public folder in Windows Vista is used for sharing folders and files with people on the same computer or the same network. The normal location for the public folder is C:\Users\Public, but this isn't necessarily the best location for it, especially if you don't have enough space on your C: drive. With some registry editing, we can move the location of the folder.
Important Note: This change should not be done lightly, as a number of readers have encountered issues with this tweak. You'll want to carefully check file permissions and make sure you have a backup before even attempting this.
If you click the Public link on the Favorite Links, you'll see the list of folders. You can copy them to a new location.
For the sake of this example, we're going to move the C:\Users\Public folder to D:\Public. First copy all the folders inside of the current Public folder into the new D:\Public folder.
Update - Important
You should turn on the option to show hidden files and folders in order to make sure you copy all the folders. There are hidden Public Desktop and Favorites folders that need to be copied as well. (thanks to steve in the comments for this)
Now we'll open up the registry editor by typing regedit into the start menu search box.
Browse down to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList
You should see a key called Public. Double-click it to open it and change it to D:\Public, or whatever location you want to move the public folder to.
Reboot, and your public folder will now be moved. You should be able to remove the old public folder if you want to. (Make sure you verify the location of the new public folder before you do)
Some how I activated the public folder by mistake. Now I just want to get rid of it or at least off of the task bar.
Any suggestions
Thanks a lot,
I was looking for a way to do this for a couple of days… It works perfectly !
Hey, thanks for the tip. I found out about your tip in Microsoft's support fourm.
It works great. There should be a easier way. You could do this with a right-click in XP on the My Doc's folder.
I have been trying to do this since I first started Vista a month ago.
What's weird is that you can just move indivdual users versions of these folders, and all the magic just happens, but this isn't enabled for Public folders. WHY???
They even have a location tab if you right click and select properties, and the text suggests you can edit the location, however you can't!
Here's waiting for service pack 1
This does not work with Home Premium. There is no "Public" key.
There is no option to delete the public folder in Vista Ultimate. You can change the location, but not delete the original.
::READ THIS POST BEFORE DOING THIS TWEAK::
Do NOT under any circumstance delete this key completely. I didnt want the public folder at all so i deleted the key completely, and it left. But later that night i found that for some reason or another it seemed that my admin account inherited guest-like permission and regardless of the settings i was unable to write to any of my files and folders within my user folder. Im not entirely sure it was because of the tweak but it was the only thing i did that could have caused it. Im not sure if this happens with moving it as well but take caution when using the tweak regardless.
Removing the key is definitely a bad idea, but modifying it should be fine as long as you specify a valid folder.
Is there a way to move the whole users folder? You can't cut and paste the folder while windows is using it.
When I did this all my desktop program icons vanished!!!
You need to move the hidden folders from the old C:\Users\Public folder to the new location. The instructions above did not detail this but there are 2 additional hidden folders (Favorites and Public Desktop) that must also be moved to avoid this problem. The Public Desktop folder is shared and you will be warned that if you move it it will no longer be shared. Ignore the warning and move the folder. Your desktop shortcuts will reappear.
Hi, way not just move "my documents" folder to d: or wherever you want it and then put a shortcut in the folder called "links" "C:\Users\Username\Links" and then everything is back to normal again and your documents are safe again
is there a way to edit the icon of the public folder?
After much mucking arround with regostry hacks etc I found somthing that does the job 100%.
"There is a nice feature in windows now called mklink. It allows you create a folder like any other folder for another location in the current location. This makes it more compatable with programs than traditional "shortcuts"
Meaning, the files in c:\users\dcollins aren't actually there, but a "folder" exists that maps to the location d:\users\dcollins…."
From ExpertsExchange ID# 22553310 (Well done maninblac1)
Also more wordy info here
http://articles.techrepublic.c.....77180.html
Thanks … I was wondering how to do this. I'd rather have the public folder on my secondary hard drive.
Thanks for this tip, it's the first thing I wanted to do when I got my new Vista box. One more thing I did–search the entire registry for "c:\users\public" and update those as well. There are some pre-installed applications that have their own references to the "Public" folder.
It didn't work for me, I followed it exactly and the reg key still says the path I changed it to and it's still not using the path I changed it to.
I got it to work, I think, since I went through and changed every instance of users\public to my new path. I mainly wanted to change it because of my recorded tv programs in media center and the fact that they were taking up a lot of space on my main drive, I wanted to move the path to my other data drive.
erh…
I think I found some problems here…
If you are using English Version of Vista, but the Display Language is another MUI package, let's say Chinese Traditional (HK) in my case, then you CANNOT do this step directly under Chinese Traditional Display Language. You MUST switch back the Display Language to English and follow this step, then switch back to whatever the language you prefer after that.
The reason is the system under different Display Language would not recognize the changed path, let's say in D:\Public, as the system recognized the path in your changed Display Language directly (meant it would not recognize the new path in English…) Well… I think I didn't explain well here, but it is just a simply confuse for the system to recognize the new path under different Display Language.
Hope this help.
Instructions are perfect. Everything worked fine. However, my purpose in moving the Public folder to the D drive was to shift the recording of TV programs in WMC to my much larger D drive. Unfortunately, it didn't work. They still record to the C: Recorded TV folder. Any ideas?
Incidentally, great site!
Hi, I moved my personal folders without realising there were hidden ones, such as appdata. There does not appear to be a means to move these as well. Should they be left in C: users folder or can they be moved. If so, how? There are also a couple of ntuser.dat.log files. Should they stay, or can they be moved as well? Thanks Andrew
Dennis, You can change the recorded TV programs location by going into the settings in the media centre application. In XP you required an add-on but in vista it’s there as a standard user feature
I found there are 2 windows folders (one is Windows and the other one is Windows.old).
Both folder is taking up about 18GB…. Can I delete the Windows.old folder because it is taking up
alot of space?
Looking for advice….
I tried this and afterwards starting having problems with I never had before.
- Could no longer save favorites or create favorite folders in Windows Explorer
- Could not save to my documents folder (permissions error)
- MSN Live Messenger continues to create a new Contacts folder in c:\users instead of the new locations in D:\ , even if I delete it, it creates it again
- Microsoft office quit working, lots of errors.
- For a while I could not save to folders on that pc from another computer on a network, I turned off user account control as a work around.
I am a bit dissappointed that a major help site like this does not more fully test the computers reaction to a major change like this before posting it for other to go ahead and make changes. No I have a pc with many problems which had no problems before this change.
Adam,
You are absolutely right, this article is very incomplete and does not cover file permissions or some of the other related issues. I'm going to edit the article and make note of this for future readers.
Sorry for the trouble!
i accidentally deleted my public folder and now i can't install some downloaded programs..when i try to create a new folder called public it wont work
You might also try this action not from MS.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/933127
I have not, but it appears there is a way to move the public folder location in a way similar to how a person above described the "magic" of moving user's folders. My bet, though is that there are still some registry leftovers that should be adjusted. Take the time to search!
Hi all,
This is the process I used (successfully!) on Vista Ultimate x64 - should work for all versions as well:
1. Turn off User Access Controls (UAC)
— Go to Control Panel -> User Accounts
— Turn off UAC
— Reboot as required
2. Go to "Organise" -> "Folder options" and select "Show hidden and system folders"
3. Create a "Users\Public" folder on D: (or wherever else you need to move the public data)
4. Re-Locate the 11 data folders in the C:\Users\Public folder
— Right-click on "Documents", go to Properties
— Click "Location" and change the location of the prefix folder location (ie I changed from C:\Users\Public\ TO D:\Users\Public\ )
— Click "YES" to move all data across to new location
— Repeat for each folder
5. Copy-paste the remaining folders that do not have "Location" properties to the new location for Public
6. Modify regostry values for "Public"
— *** NOTE: THIS IS DANGEROUS IF NOT PERFORMED CORRECTLY ***
— Click the windows "start" button, and in the "search" bar, type: regedit
— In regedit, click "File -> Export"
— Save your existing registry data somewhere in case you need to restore it
— Do a find on all "C:\Users\Public", and replace all instances with your new location (in my case D:\Users\Public)
7. Set the %PUBLIC% environment variable
— Go to Control Panel, and go to the System properties
— Go to the "Advanced System Settings" link
— On the "Startup & Performance" tab, click the "Environment Variables" button
— In the bottom section (System Variables), click "New" and set the name to %PUBLIC%
— Set the value to be the new location for your Public folder
8. Reboot
9. Test the changes
— Click the windows start button, in the search bar, type: %PUBLIC%
— Your new location should be displayed
— In the "Favourites" area above your folder listings in explorer (NOT THE FOLDER LISTS), clicking Public should show your new location
If all is ok so far, and your data is visible…
10. Delete the remaining "old" Public folder in C:\Users\
11. Add folder junction for anything that still points to C:\Users\Public\
— Go to the start menu, Accessories, RIGHT-CLICK on the Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator"
— in the Command Prompt window, type:
C:
cd \Users
mklink /J Public
if you now type: dir
You should see an entry for Public that points to your new location. This ensures that the "Public" link that appears under the "Desktop" listing on the folder lists works (DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW TO CHANGE WHERE THIS "FOLDER" GETS ITS LOCATION FROM without making a junction to make it poitn to the new location???)
12. Re-instate the User Access Control that was disabled in step 1.
2 corrections:
11. Add folder junction for anything that still points to C:\Users\Public\
— Go to the start menu, Accessories, RIGHT-CLICK on the Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator"
— in the Command Prompt window, type:
C:
cd \Users
mklink /J Public …full path to your new location…
ADD STEP 13: Set Permissions
Public folder is an "all access" area. Right-click your new Public folder and hit "Properties -> Security"
Click "Edit"
Add the user "everyone" and give "Full Access" rights.
Apply to the Public folder and all lower level folders
Hey guys, I am wondering about one thing…. what happens when I boot my system and the second disk is not available? Will Vista still boot, or will it hang? Will it just ignore the entries in the registry pointing to a (now) not existing disk?
I believe it will create a TEMP folder in the your standard user locations folder. It has done it to me before.
That does it… too dumb. They blew it. I'm buying a MAC.