Comments on: Move the Public Folder in Windows Vista

By: Herculesvq

Herculesvq — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:43:34 +0000

SAFE WAY TO DO IT!!!
I don’t like to mess around with registry keys. I think that all that is working in a high layer, and probably hard to know all the undocumented pointer to the Public folder. Instead I decide to change things at a lower layer, what it to do a symbolic link (soft link for Unix) that point to the folder in the drive that I whant it to be.
So here are the steps:
1. – Restart windows and push F8 to open the menu to start in SAFE MODE with Command Line Window. After entering you password you will see the command line window.

2. – Copy the Public folder to you destination folder: U:\Public

XCOPY C:\User\Public u:\Public /E /F /G /H /K /O /X /B

This will copy all files with all the ACL rights

3.- Create a backup folder:

MKDIR c:\Backup

4. – Move the Public folder to backup folder

MOVE c:\Users\Public c:\Backup\Public

5.- Create a symbolic link to the new destination

MKLINK /D c:\Users\Public u:\Public

6.- Restart windows un normal mode.

Now all the high layer pointer still are pointing to c:\Users\Public that is really a link to the new destination.

By: GiSWiG

GiSWiG — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 01:44:35 +0000

Just another tip. Try this before changing reg key and rebooting

Open cmd and be sure to ‘Run as Administrator’

xcopy C:\Users\Public U:\UserData\Public /e /h /o

Copies all the files and folders with the proper permissions, which could be why users had problems. So here I created ‘U:\UserData’ and this command created and copied all of the Public folder.

By: Reed

Reed — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 23:14:20 +0000

Great hack! Just tried it with Windows 7 RC and it works the same way as described here.

By the way. Instead of making hidden files visible and copying the Public folders with the explorer, I use Robocopy which is part of Windows since Vista. Just make sure you open a command window as administrator – it’s not sufficient to start the command window as a user with admin rights, you have to right click cmd and choose to start as administrator! Then enter the following command according to the example above:

robocopy C:\Users\Public\ D:\Public /E /COPYALL /ZB /XJ

Then you may be sure everything is copied and you don’t miss anything after changing the path.

Have fun and bye!
Reed

By: dc

dc — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:25:14 +0000

Before you start investing serious time in pursuing this hack, consider the following:

While it isn’t the most clean, create you own shared folders and don’t bother with this hack. I started down the path of making the suggested changes, but one thing lead to hte next that points back to C:\USERS\PUBLIC – and “no” you can’t simply create a link called “Public” that points to D:\PUBLIC (that would be too easy). Just don’t store too much stuff into public which fills up your default drive and instead create a share, like D_PUBLIC to store your big files.

Good luck!

By: Len

Len — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:53:59 +0000

I used the move /Public folders to new drive procedure. I eventually got it. So for those of you having difficulty…my demise. I know I did not add a space afer s:Public; there is no way I put a space there; I could not tell a space was there. BUT SOMEHOW I PUT A SPACE AFTER Public in my HKEY….\Profile list. This left a space between folder and subfolders. Example “/public /pictures: was bad, instead of /public/pictures pointers like I needed.
Good Luck. Works great now.

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:15:28 +0000

@Rich: That is because the File Sharing service is still pointing to the old directory, one way to fix this is:
1. Click the Start button.
2. Right click on Computer and click Manage.
3. Click Continue.
4. On the left double click “Shared Folders” and click “Shares”.
5. Double click the share named “Public”.
6. Under “Folder Path” put in the new Public directory path.
7. Click ok.
Now all the other computers will point to the new directory.

By: Rich

Rich — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 13:28:33 +0000

Surprise me…
All went well as could be hoped for on public move in Vista…
However, all (vista/xp/ dare i say mac) machines on my network still looking at old c:\users\public directory. Locally it takes me to the new directory….

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:05:43 +0000

Wow, I am amazed at the level of confusion around the Public folder.
The Public folder is just a new name for the “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users” directory in Windows 2000/XP and should never be changed without proper planning.
The same with the User Profile folder, “C:\Documents and Settings\[UserName]” in Windows XP and “C:\Users\[UserName]” in Windows Vista.
Microsoft included a very easy way to move the special folders like Public in Windows Vista.
The problem is that the user interface to set them has a few bugs like not working with User Account Control (UAC) when setting per-machine folders.
There is a way to change all the per-machine and per-user folders though and that way is to use the program “Known Folders Browser” ( http://weblogs.asp.net/kennyke.....2900_.aspx ) to set them.
The program “Known Folders Browser” uses the new “Known Folder” APIs in Windows Vista to list every “Known Folder” and let you change them if you want to.
I have no idea why Microsoft didn’t include a program like “Known Folders Browser” in Windows Vista or at least release one as a power toy instead of the very limited user interface Windows Explorer provides though.

The Known Folders in Windows Vista like PROGRAMFILES, PUBLIC and PROFILE are listed as fixed folders even though they can be changed with simple registry edits as without knowing exactly what you are doing, you can really screw things up.

The biggest problem with the registry tweak listed on this page is that when you update the Public folder location, it affects all the Known Folders below it like Desktop and Common Favorites.
Should you not copy all the Public folders to the new location, you will get a lot of strange behavior.
Also should you have changed one of the Known Folders under Public like Desktop to be “C:\Users\Public\Desktop” then changing this setting will not affect that change.

It seems to me that Microsft should not have even added a registry value to control a location like “Public” that is “Fixed” to a location where power users were bound to mess with it.
Instead of “\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList”, it should have been put under “\Going-Down-The-Rabbithole\No-Turning-Back-Now\No-Really\You-Have-Picked-The-Red-Pill\You-Have-Left-The-Matrix\FixedFolderList”

By: Lauro

Lauro — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 22:35:03 +0000

Thanks for your useful suggestion!
I did the Regedit change and it worked.
But now when I see my Network under my computer name there are 2 public folder: “Public” (the old one) and “Public2″ (the new one).
Why? How I can get rid of the old one?
It seems that there is some other registry setting that need to be changed.

Thanks, Lauro

By: DraftyBeer

DraftyBeer — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:13:39 +0000

I use win vista.
When I move the cursor or do anything like fill out a form or play a game,a small scrolling tool displays next to the cursor and scrolls the page everytime I move the cursor.
Is there anyway to stop this action with the cursor?
Big Thanx if you know how to fix this.