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I currently have a desktop with one big drive in it. I have a C: and a D: partition. C: is for my Windows OS and programs, and D: is for my data. I have My Documents configured to my D: partition.

I have an SSD that I plan to use as my new OS/programs drive - I will install a fresh copy of Windows onto that new drive. What I'd like to do then is reestablish the new install's My Documents to point to the My Documents already on my data partition.

I know how to change the location of My Documents to point to a new location; will this also work for changing the location to point to an exising location?

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You could test the process with a different account and see if it works and doesn't wipe out the contents of the existing location.

To be safe, you could rename the old location to something else, point your My Documents to the original name of the old location (allowing it to create it), then just move all the contents from the "something else" folder to your new My Documents. No need to worry if it will wipe out anything in the move.

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    Works great. The process was actually simpler than I thought it would be...I found that you can just change the location, and it then prompts you if you want it to move over the existing files. Choosing no works fine, and it immediately switches over to the new location.
    – Dan
    Feb 6, 2010 at 6:17
  • Awesome, I may make use of that myself...
    – DCookie
    Feb 6, 2010 at 13:55
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    One caveat I just disovered the most recent time I moved: I had dropbox installed, and when I moved my documents folder, the dropbox install thought I removed ALL the files. So I had to un-delete them all via the website. I think the fix for this would be to unlink or uninstall dropbox before the move and reinstall or relink after the move.
    – Dan
    Jul 24, 2012 at 0:24

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