Hi What are these folders used for? (I'm interested in moving my C:\Users folder to, say, D:\Users and so would like to know the significance of the "Public" and "Default" folders) Thanks for your help!

I would advise against moving the Users folder. It is a system folder and tied to dozens of registry entries.

Hi Rick I frequently make image backups of my C drive. This allows me to try out various bits of software. Should I decided I don't want this software anymore I can restore my C drive using one of my backup images. I keep all my data on a separate partition/drive so any image restores I carry out do not affect my data. However, many applications themselves store information on the C drive in the C:\Users\username folder.(iTunes and VirtualBox for example). Now if I do an image restore this data will be erased!! and gone will be my Virtualbox virtual hard drive and my iTunes playlists and ratings. If I want to keep all my data (including that which application put into C:\Users\Username) how do I do that? Any help on this will be most appreciated

Default User profile is a template profile for all created users. Whenever you create a new user profile, the profile is built based on the Default User profile. The Public Folder is for sharing files with all other users that in the system, or on network. All local users can access this profile, but cannot access your private user profile. Arthur Xie - MSFT

Hi Arthur Thanks for the clear answer