Change desktop location/path using regedit

By default windows saves desktop contents on %USERPROFILE%\Desktop. (ex: if user name is adithya, in windows 7 it will be stored in C:\Users\adithya\Desktop). Some may prefer to
change this may be due to less space in windows drive.

It is always better to save contents outside windows partiton since if you reinstall windows ,then your
desktop contents will be somewhere else and it will not be affected. This post will show you how to do this by using good old windows registry.

First create a new folder in the drive you want to move your desktop contents. Move all desktop contents to that folder.We will now see how to change the path in windows registry so that our desktop location is pointing to this directory.

Open regedit from run or search (in case of win 7+).

Navigate to path  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

Default Desktop Value

There will be a entry called Desktop. Double click that to modify that entry. Add the absolute (full) path of the folder you just created in it. Restart the system and your desktop contents will be back.

Modified Desktop Entry Value

Now,any new contents stored in Desktop will point to your custom folder and will be saved there. Cross check this by creating new folder in desktop and see the contents of that custom folder you created.