hard driveIn Windows Vista and Xp I love the way the user accounts are handled with music, documents, pics all available in an easily understandable structure. However, I find that data and disk management wise it is much better to have all these on either a separate drive, or a separate partition.

You can change the default location of user folders which means that the data in them will be accessible through the original location, but also in a new location you specify. The data will actually be stored in a new location, the old location will serve as a short cut to them.

In Vista, all you need to do is right-click the Documents folder for example and choose properties. Click on the location tab on the top left and using the move button, select a new location for your files. Click yes to move all your files to the new location and from then on, whenever you click on Documents in the start menu, or choose it from a save dialog you will actually be going to the new location. In XP the method is pretty much the same, except for maybe a button difference in the end, I can’t remember, but you should be able to get along fine.

Using this method you can backup your data much more easily, especially if you choose a location on a different hard drive. In this case you can just reinstall windows keeping your folder structures in tact easily.

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