Assign a home folder to a local user account

Applies To: Windows Server 2008

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