Assign a home folder to a local user account

Applies To: Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012

Administrators is the minimum group membership required to complete this procedure. Review the details in "Additional considerations" in this topic.

To assign a home folder to a local user account

  1. Open Computer Management.

  2. In the console tree, click Users .

    Where?

    • Computer Management\System Tools\Local Users and Groups\Users
  3. Right-click the user account for which you want to specify a home folder, and then click Properties .

  4. On the Profile tab, do one of the following:

    • To specify a local home folder, click Local path , and then type the path, for example, c:\users\maria.

    • To specify a home folder on a shared resource, click Connect , click the proper drive letter, and then type the network path, for example, \\airedale\users\andreas.

Additional considerations

  • To perform this procedure, you must provide credentials for the Administrator account on the local computer (if you are prompted), or you must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer.

  • The Documents folder provides a convenient alternative to home folders, but it does not replace them. Each user has a Documents folder on the boot volume.

  • If no home folder is assigned, the system assigns a default local home folder to the user account (on the root directory where the operating system files are installed as the initial version).

  • To specify a network path for the home folder, you must first create the shared resource and set permissions that allow the user access.

Additional references

Managing files for local user accounts

Assign a logon script to a local user account

Add a member to a local group