Windows File History is unable to analyse user library modifications

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I just activated Windows File History, but it won't work. It loads for a surprisingly short time when I tell it to "execute now". When I look in the event journals, I see that for every time I tried, there is an error under event number 201:

Impossible d’analyser les modifications des bibliothèques utilisateur
et d’effectuer une sauvegarde des fichiers modifiés pour la
configuration
C:\Users\Azma\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\Configuration\Config

Which roughly translates to:

Unable to analyse modifications on user libraries and to save modified
files for configuration
C:\Users\Azma\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\FileHistory\Configuration\Config

I've had user folder permission issues recently, which I thought the Microsoft technician had just fixed by applying to the whole Users folder total control permissions for my account. Indeed, whilst it couldn't before, now, the Windows Store can install applications.

But he did that on D:\Users, which contains folder Azma, which is my user folder. Not on C:\Users, which contains the symbolic link Azma, which points to D:\Users\Azma. In short, he applied it on the real folder, not the symlink.

So I tried to apply it to C:\Users, but it gave me an error, saying it was unable to propagate settings to the "Application Data" folder.

But perhaps the permission issue / symlink is not the problem. I don't know at all, and I'm pretty confused about this.

Best Answer

Symbolic links, or Junction points, are usually transparent for applications. But they're not regular folders.

Backup applications are those apps for which symbolic links are not transparent.

File History operates on file system level, it saves some data on the file system, and your symbolic link points to another drive. That can cause issues with backup software.

Since File History backups libraries, you can leave your user profile on the SSD drive and then remove the default folder from the libraries and add the folders on D: drive into the libraries. And you can keep AppData as symbolic link to a folder on D: drive.

You can also move your users profile to D: drive completely.
You might also want to move ProgramData folder and Public profile to D: drive.

Or you can change the default location of user's profiles and then create a new account for yourself. The complete step-by-step guide: How to Change the Default Location of a User Profile in Windows 7 and Vista.

Do not forget to create a backup of your data, or better a system image to restore everything if something goes wrong.

Default location of user's profiles:

  1. Start Registry Editor by typing regedit on the Start screen and pressing Enter.
  2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList key.
  3. With ProfileList selected in the tree on the left, right-click ProfilesDirectory on the right pane and then click Modify or simply double-click ProfilesDirectory.
  4. Change the default value of %SystemDrive%\Users to D:\Users.
  5. Create a new user account, and its profile would be located under D:\Users.

Change location of existing user profile:

  1. Log on to an administrator account other than the account you want to move.
  2. Copy the profile of the user you want to move.
    In your case, you simply need to remove the symbolic link in C:\Users.
  3. Open Registry Editor by typing regedit on the Start screen and pressing Enter.
  4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList key.
  5. Expand ProfileList key and look through each S-1-5- until find your user name and path in the Data column on the right pane in ProfileImagePath value.
  6. When you found it, right-click ProfileImagePath and then click Modify or simply double-click ProfileImagePath.
  7. Type the new path, for example D:\Users\Azma. Click OK to save the settings.
  8. Now you can log in to the account whose profile was just moved.
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