How do you permanently change the value of env var HOMEDRIVE on windows XP?

I want to set it to a mapped network drive. I have tried a var named 'HOMEDRIVE' in advanced>env vars>system vars, then restarting (no luck). It works for the cmd.exe session I'm in when i do set HOMEDRIVE=W:, but of course it does not persist between sessions/restart.

How do I do it globally (or at least for my user). I am using XP pro, and not connected to a windows active directory server.

11/17/2008 5:47:59 PM

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=change+home+drive+windows&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=change+home+drive+windows

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=change+homedrive+windows&btnG=Search


so you want to change your C drive to something else? i don't really follow. or are you just wanting all your my docs or something like that to be located remotely? maybe if you say why you are trying to do this i can give a better answer...

11/17/2008 6:25:24 PM

This could cause issues if you lose network connectivity and need to access...basic system files

11/17/2008 6:27:12 PM

i think that he wants my documents to point to a different drive, a network drive

i used to know, but i forgot, i think that i used one of those tweakxp or tweakui programs to do it

[Edited on November 17, 2008 at 9:21 PM. Reason : 

11/17/2008 9:19:59 PM

thats pretty easy actually.

just right click on the my docs folder, its in there

11/17/2008 9:28:33 PM

yea, i'd really like to hear why you want to do this

like synapse said..if it's for the my documents folder you can just right click on my documents and change the directory it uses...set it to a mapped network drive and you're done.

i'm guessing it's something more complicated than that though.

11/17/2008 9:36:53 PM

if only moving my docs were this easy in vista

11/17/2008 9:51:49 PM

^ it is, just right click on the documents folder

11/18/2008 9:29:36 AM

^ not the same thing! that only works halfway...i want to set up my vista pc to be like my xp used to be - 1 drive, 3 partitions: operating system, my documents, page file

just right-clicking and moving the individual folders (which i also don't want to do, i want to move the entire thing) only works for some things because the symlinks don't take

11/18/2008 10:22:28 AM

I want to make a network "Desktop" and My Documents. I know if i lose network it will cause problems....

I do not want to change C drive to something else. Just %HOMEDRIVE% - so things that rely on %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH% will write to a network drive...

synapse: I have already looked at those pages - did I miss something? do they indeed tell me how to do what Im trying to do?

11/18/2008 11:00:32 AM

yes, I think those search results answer your question.

11/18/2008 11:21:13 AM

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=change+home+drive+windows&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=change+home+drive+windows provides ways to do it via group policy. Group policy as far as i know is an AD thing, and as I mentioned before I'm not connected to an AD server (this is a standalone xp install that is not part of a network domain).

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=change+homedrive+windows&btnG=Search provides ways to change the system drive letter (which I do not want to do). I only want to change the HOMEDRIVE env variable.

I'm not trying to avoid figuring this out myself, but can you be more specific on what I should do? Maybe a direct link to one of the google results that contain what you think I need to do?

I'm obviously missing something here or making a bad assumption. thx.

11/18/2008 2:00:24 PM

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=change+homedrive+windows+variable&btnG=Search

http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=navclient&gfns=1&q=change+the+HOMEDRIVE+env+variable

you know im just taking your statments and plugging them in google right?

if you cant figure out what to do after reading these results (at least the first couple pages if needed) then you need to take you PC to someone who knows what theyre doing

11/18/2008 2:26:51 PM