Vista Tutorial - Creating a Personal User Folder

Hi,

Is it possible to create a new personal user folder (i.e. I want to name it "Shortcuts" or "X-Files")?

I tried renaming one of the existing personal user folder (i.e. Downloads renamed to Shortcuts) and changing the location it points to another folder. However, if you execute the shell command "Shell: Downloads", it will still go to the folder being pointed to now by the "Shortcuts" folder.

Is there a way to change this via registery?

Thanks.

Hi Joeleflores,

Welcome to Vista Forums.

While you can usually change the default location for the user folders without problems, renaming them would most likely cause problems. Some programs use the default name. Without it there, Vista will recreate it or the program will give you a error. I would recommend not to rename them to avoid any potential problems from it.


Hope this helps,
Shawn

Hi, thanks for the warm welcome

Are there ways to create new personal user folders? By that, the folder property should have a "Locations" tab, right?
Also, is it possible to add a shell command similar to what's being used for the default personal user folders via registry edit?

I just want it for aesthetics value, I hope there are ways that you know of.

Thanks again.

I confirm what says Shawn, you always can do tricks in the registry but in this case it is quite risky as many programs use the default name.
To give you an example, i run the french version of Vista and absolutely all names in the registry are in english, the translation being made through links.
For example, the shell command in french is "Downloads", linked to a folder named "Téléchargement".
The funny thing is that it is not really transparent when you look at the folders in the windows explorer, but you can notice exactly what is going on when you substitute the explorer by freecommander for example, the folder tree is in english for some folders though in the pane they are in french.... Funny isn't it?
So i guess that Microsoft itself didn't take the chance to translate everything through the registry, using links is much more easier when some names are used by a lot of proggies.

Hi there,

Thanks for the reply.

What I really want is just to create a personal user folder, not an ordinary folder that is. By that, I want the newly-created folder to have a "Locations" tab.

For example, I will create a "Scans" folder inside my profile account but I want it to point to another location of an external drive. If I were to do that in "Downloads" folder, I can easily make it index to a different location by simply changing the path specified in the "Locations" tab, right?

I hope you understand my idea.

Thanks.

I do not know of a safe way to do it the way you want, but you could create new folders in the location that you want them, then place shortcut for them in your C:\Users\(user name) folder. Next, create shortcuts for the default user folders and place them in the new shortcut folders for easy access. After this, you can hide the default user folders so you no longer see them and just see the new ones. This tutorial will show you how to hide the folders if needed.

Hidden Files and Folders

It's a bit of a workaround, but I believe it will give you what you want almost without causing any problems.

Shawn

BTW, why not doing it through a junction link or whatever it is called in Vista?

Good point Sidney, I suppose he can. It's a little more complicated, but this link will show you how to Joeleflores.

Create Symbolic Links, Hard Links and Directory Junctions in Vista with MKLINK » My Digital Life

Shawn

I did it after writing my last post and it works fine.
I also did it with Junction Link Magic the Vista version is "beta" but it works fine.

That's a nice little program Sidney. Does it work ok on the 64 bit version of Vista?