Windows 7 moving multiple user file to 1 user file

Hello,

Hmm. Your going to have to do some leg work to get this done. Where exactly are these files located? On the desktop?

If so:

Open up your computer - navigate to the C drive.

Find "Documents and settings"

Under that - there will be a list of user profiles. You will have to be the local administrator to be able to access the files.

Once you find them - highlight them and and copy them to your new user account in the same folder (documents and settings).

So the only files I need to worry about will be under documents and setting? All other files created by the past users will still be located in whatever directory they were saved in?

click start > right click "computer" and select properties > click setting under user profiles> click on the profile you want to copy > then click on the profile you want to copy to and click copy to

you must logon on to the profile you want to copy to at least once and you need to reboot and log on as an administrator, you cant log on to either profile that are involved in the copy and you must reboot if you have logged on to either profile since the last reboot. the user that had the setting copied to may need full acess to the data that was copied.

They will be under documents and setting in whichever folder they were saved in. Think of it as a filing cabinet. Each folder would be labelled, and in each folder it would contain the files, if there are any.

For example you go to

C:\Documents and settings\User1

Now under that User1 folder there will be things like:

Desktop
Downloads
Favourites
My pictures

The files will be wherever the user(s) saved the files to.

Only you (or your users) know where all the files would be saved. Some people dump files directly on their C:\ drive, or even C:\(folder name).

If you want to do a specific search for files you could do this:

Click on the start orb, and type in Search in the search box. Click on the searches button (so it's easier to manage).

Now on the top right corner of the searches window you can start searching for specific names/or files.

For example if you want to find documents, or excel files you would type in:

*.doc

or

*.xls

The asterisk (*) and period after it (.) means they are looking for ALL files with an extension of .doc or .xls

You can do it for any type of file (ex):

*.jpg

*.exe

*.bmp

Edit: Or you can just do a simple name searches for example:

July (this would look for all files with the name of July in it)

Looked like an easy solution but when I highlighted the 3 accounts that I want to move the copy to button is greyed out. Only the default account lights up the copy to button.

The absolute easiest way to copy anything and everything in to copy all the contents of each user folder to a single folder. You might run into some problems where saved application preferences, internet login information, etc. conflicts.

To give the best possible answer to your question, more information would be helpful. What exactly are you wanting to accomplish? (wiping a hard drive? simply making it so that everyone in the house uses the same login? something else?) And why?

What you're doing won't work. You need to do what Chainsaw says. Your moving the documents from 3 users profiles and combining them into 1 profile.

Over the last year or so 3 different users have used this computer. One person leaves or gets transferred and another person replaces them. They all had individual user names which wasn't necessary. I now have a 4th person using this computer and I don't want to keep adding to the mess so I want to use a department name as a user and everybody's files from the past and everybody who may be using this computer in the future will use the same login. 1 user name, 1 desktop is the goal.

Did you read my post?

Are you logging in as an administrator? You can't access the files unless you are logging in as an administrator to copy them.

Yes. In fact all users have administrators rights. One user as shown on the welcome screen must have just changed another user's name to her name. I see the other user when I'm in the properties box but not the current user but the current uuser has a logon name.
I can and will just copy all of the files to a new account named after the department and delete out all off the old profiles and just be done with it. I thought "The Great Randini" had an easier method worth exploring but I'm not able to accomplish what I need to do so far.

CTRL+C on the keyboard will also copy highlighted files/folders.

Also take a look at this blog and try out the fix located there:

http://brainextender.blogspot.ca/2010/01/windows-7-copy...

Edit: Ctrl+V is the paste function.

It sounds like you are in a business setting. If your business is large enough to have an IT group then they should have some tools to simplify the process. Alternatively, if you have a central file storage location (server) then these users that are only with you for a short time should be saving all their work to that location.

It is usually bad IT practice in a business setting to have multiple users logging in to the same user account. You will invariably end up with a lot of junk on the one profile slowing down the computer.



That said, it also sounds like you don't need to copy all the folders from all the user profiles. Now that I know what you are working with, I should be able to help simplify the process.

First off, you should have absolutely no need to copy certain folders (favorites, hopefully desktop as they should have been saving anything there, appdata, etc.). The only place I would expect to find anything you would need is in the My Documents, My Pictures (if their work required pictures) and My Videos (if the work required videos) all located in the C:\Users\%username% folder for each user.

Additionally, you could search the C: Drive for any files that apply to the program(s) in which the users were working. Running searches in the C: Drive for all *.doc and *.docx files, for instance, should pull all MS Word documents. You can then pull all the discovered documents to a central location.