Where do you set the User Profile location?

[visumax]

Trying to create a trimmed Windows 11 Pro iso with the free edition of NTLite. Does the the free edition of NTLite allow you to set the user profile location to another drive (i.e. D verses keeping on the system drive C: or is that a paid feature?

Thank you

 

[garlin]

There's no NTLite feature for changing the User Profile location, but you can run this script during Post-Setup (works on free edition).

I don't recommend it, simply because you can't guarantee drive letters during install. But it works perfectly.

1. Edit the script's first line with your new folder path.
2. Add script to Post-Setup (Machine).

The script MKDIR's the new User Profile path, symlinks C:\Users\Default and Public so user provisioning can clone Default User's environment.
You can use this script on a live system to change the path for NEW local users created after running the script. It doesn't migrate existing users.

View attachment 9707

 

[visumax]

Thank you for the reply Garlin. I have never used NTLite, just nLite. I don't know if it is by the same developer but I thought it would have that option. I know that for Windows 10 you could create an sysprep / oobe / unattended file for installation of windows that would set the users profile to another drive beside the windows system drive. I had done it in the past and it worked like a champ (see attached). I did tried it for a clean upgrade to windows 11 but it failed.

I even tried to get Audit mode to work during install (like for previous Windows editions (ctrl + shift + f3)) but, Windows 11 does not seem to give me the chance or I am simply missing it and NLite used to have an option for it when setting up Windows XP. Having programdata and users profiles on another drive in windows 10 was nice when you have a small SSD that you want to run the OS on and thereby keeping the bloat down on the system drive.

Do you have any other recommendations that I might try for Windows 11 to sperate %USERPROFILES% and %PROGRAMDATA% from the system drive to another drive? Or recommend another resource I should read? Thank you again for any recommendations you can provide.

 

[garlin]

Don't use Kari's method. I've read his Tenforums tutorial, he loves sysprep to death.

My script works on ANY Windows ISO, if you rename the same file to SetupComplete and drop it into $OEM$ folder. I was going to suggest my method on his thread, but at 140 pages -- no one's reading anything but the first and last pages.

There's no need to invoke sysprep, when you can update the ProfilesDirectory setting in Post-Setup. This action takes place before the first logon user is provisioned. The other benefit is \User\Default stays on the system drive, lessening the need to repair re-install if the option drive fails.

I don't believe in relocating ProgramData for the same reason. In reality, apart from WU's update cache -- most system disk space is consumed by user profiles and installed program folders. Those are the safest to move, by simply creating directory symlinks in place if they don't support choosing a different install path.

 

[garlin]

Relocating ProgramData:

set PROGRAMDATA_PATH=D:

mkdir "%PROGRAMDATA_PATH%"
mklink /d "%PROGRAMDATA_PATH%\ProgramData" C:\ProgramData
reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList" /v ProgramData /t REG_SZ /d "%PROGRAMDATA_PATH%" /f