Okay, prepare for expert-level tech stuff, because it's going to get technical up in here, bitchez! My situation: My current Windows 7 installation is customized such that the Users and ProgramData folders are located on a different partition, on a second harddrive, and not together with the main Windows installation, which is the default. I did this during the clean installation of Windows 7, using OOBE Audit mode, and an XML "script". Now I am kind of wanting to try out Windows 8, and initially wanted to do a simple upgrade. Unfortunately, the upgrade setup doesn't recognize my custom installation, and therefore doesn't know where to look for the Users folder, which results in it not giving me a chance to "keep" any previous settings or configurations. (Basically a clean install) My options are therefore to continue with the pseudo-clean install using the upgrade setup, or doing an actual clean install. My question: Does anybody have any experience using Symbolic Links to Users and ProgramData folders in Windows 8? Does anybody have any experience going the OOBE Audit mode way of doing the same? I've heard there can be issues with the pre-installed Metro apps and the Windows Store app, if the ProgramData is on another partition than the main Windows partition, but I don't know if this is fixed by using symlinks rather than an XML script at install.
My advice on the matter would be to simply not try Windows 8. It is possibly the most clumsy version of Windows I have ever used. No one should ever use it unless they have a touchscreen
Well, I have no doubt there's going to be a patch for switching off the Metro interface by default, either official or non-official, sooner or later. And there ARE some performance improvements from Win7 to Win8 -- Additionally, there are some things that only run on Windows 8, such as Blend for VS2012.
I would guess that win8 wont appreciate your other locations even if you can get them to see them. Ill poke around and see what i can find. im curious. personally, i would do a regular clean install and then copy the existing stuff over and create the symlink, kinda dirty though. from what i can read its 'not recommended' in windows 8.
Yeah, I'm reading that it causes issues with at least the ProgramData folder, and the pre-installed Metro apps. I might just settle with the Users folder then. Or try both, and see if it really does create such a huge issue. I just really don't want my Users folder (which easily hit 50GB in size) on my SSD. >_>
Its obviously where he keeps his pr0n collection. No one would ever suspect it to be under My Pictures.
music? movies? pictures? documents? Not hard imo Having migrated computers a few times my user folder ends up usually being 60 Gb+ to transfer