(I'd put this as a comment rather than a new answer but I don't have enough reputation to do so)
I don't think user829755's answer does the same thing. Altering the home folder this way using local users and groups does something completely different: it changes what the environment variables HOMEDRIVE
and HOMEPATH
are set to. But I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anything that uses these. If you start a CMD
prompt, it still starts off set to the home folder from ProfileImagePath
. If you start exploring the file system, you'll find that Libraries->Documents->My Documents still points to the Documents/My Documents folder under the ProfileImagePath
, etc.
The entry in ProfileImagePath
is the folder that must contain the NTUSER.DAT
file for the SID that was in the registry path leading to ProfileImagePath
. This is just one of the conditions in the sniff test that occurs when the user logs in. If the sniff test fails (for this and any of several other reasons) a new folder under \users will be created with a new NTUSER.DAT file.
Works fine, but may break some some applications. These can't find some of their old data anymore, due to hardcoded paths. E.g. MS Outlook 2016 and MiKTeX. I would recommand to avoid moving the user profile if the user already used the account. – someonr – 2020-02-04T12:27:05.883