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I have a 465 GB SSD and a 4 TB HDD in my Windows 7 Ultimate x64 machine. I have a junction (not symlink) that points C:\Users to D:\Users. Does anyone know if the Windows 10 upgrade will still install on this configuration? I ask because I've read that Windows 8.1 will not install if there is a junction that points C:\Users to any other location. FWIW, the Windows 10 upgrade advisor says my system is ready and only points out that my copy of Norton 360 will no longer be functional (duh!). Thanks.

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  • Moving your Users directory is not recommended or supported by MS and never has been. I'd advise you to create an empty dummy Users dir (and sub-dirs) on C: (xcopy /t /e can help), hopefully go through the upgrade without any hitches, then re-create the junction later. If empty dirs don't work you might have to copy over everything in C:\Users except your data (i.e. files in Downloads, Desktop, wherever).
    – Karan
    Jun 1, 2015 at 22:48
  • Yeah, I know MS doesn't "support" it, but they're will aware that many users have a junction that points C:\Users somewhere else. Even C:\Documents and Settings is a junction to C:\Users. It seems like MS doesn't want to acknowledge that many of their users have multiple drives. And with the SSD I'd like to keep writes down to a minimum. I was also thinking along your lines, but if somehow Win-10 will install on an installation with a junction, I can avoid much hassle.
    – BillDOe
    Jun 1, 2015 at 23:06
  • I highly doubt it. I used to have a junction like this in Windows 7 and Windows 8 flat out refused to upgrade. Just bombed out with unknown errors each time.
    – Mark Henderson
    Jun 1, 2015 at 23:50
  • The Documents and Settings junction is for backward compatibility. Every change, even in permissions, to system folders is not supported and will break. Protecting your SSD from writes is an overturned concept. Instead, you're wasting your system's potential.
    – Daniel B
    Jun 1, 2015 at 23:54
  • Daniel, I don't have enough room on the SSD for what's on my HDD, which is 4 TB (well, 3.63 TB) and is about a quarter full.
    – BillDOe
    Jun 1, 2015 at 23:57

4 Answers 4

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Based on a post from a day ago -- http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1964-users-folder-move-location-windows-10-a-post305666.html#post305666

Just wanted to let you and everyone else know that I was able to upgrade from windows 8.1 pro, with user files on D:\ , to windows10 pro without any problems. Windows 10 just installed and when it was finished everything was just as it was before. I've been playing around with programs and apps and everything seems to be working fine.

It appears that there is not a need to move user files back to C:\ before upgrade.

Which would be excellent news -- the restriction never made any sense to me, and while we could always relocate the documents/etc folders, there's a TON of data in Roaming/etc that easily fills an SSD.

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  • Did you install from Windows update or from an ISO? I tried today from Windows update, and it did not go well. The installation froze at 87% in Configuration Settings and eventually reinstalled Windows 7 x64.
    – BillDOe
    Aug 2, 2015 at 22:57
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In a related configuration, I had used a junction to move C:\Windows\Installer to D:\Windows\Installer. I did not realize it until I tried upgrading some products a few weeks after the Windows 10 upgrade (from 8.1), but the junction was removed and caused quite a few issues. I simply needed to copy all new content to the D:\ drive, remove C:\Windows\Installer, and re-create the junction using mklink. After that, everything was working again.

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Doesn't work for me. I set up a batch script that moves the C:\Users folder to D:\ (or whichever drive you specify) after Windows does an install (but before it starts up again after a reboot), and makes all the junction links and sets the same permissions as the originals.

I tried the Windows 10 1511 update recently and it did all the updating, but failed at around 90% and undid the process to leave my PC working as normal. I'm currently searching for information as to where the log would be stored for this to try and find out more information as to what caused it to fail.

I know that some Windows updates (not major ones, but cumulative) will fail due to the user profile being on a different drive.

The fix for that is to change the keys in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

to point directly to the correct location instead of using the paths with the %system% variables as some of the updates don't like following Symlinks. This also works if you have an issue with Bitnami installers saying "Payload Initialization failed".

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LINKD command that is used for creating Junction Point is no longer available in Win10, so the answer is no.

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  • The command for creating a junction is mklink /j and it still works in Windows 10.
    – Mik
    Aug 3, 2016 at 9:42

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