in Win Explorer, what are those stupid shortcuts on my tree, and what use are they?

I first set hands on an IBM PC in 1980: DOS 2.0, Word 1.0 & Lotus 1 (not 1a). I'm organized can find things on a hard drive just fine, thank you very much. I'm used to a tree and a file list, and had them with PCTools long before Peter bought that app and turned it into Norton Utilities or Gates even dreamed of such a thing as part of his OS.

Vista's Explorer tree goes:
Desktop
Sarah
Public
Computer
etc

I understand and use Computer, and I'm finding Public useful, but in Sarah, there are some shortcuts that don't go anywhere, e.g., application data, local settings, my documents, cookies, etc. When I left-click on them, all I ever get is "location not available" "access denied" with blather in between.

What I want to know:
Do they have a name? I tried hunting for info on them, but without a specific name for them, it's impossible.
What earthly use are those shortcuts supposed to be if you can't click on them and go anywhere?
Is there someplace else that they show up or do they only exist in explorer under the user name?
If they do show somewhere else, are they any use there?
Can they be safely deleted? I've already tried moving them and you can't.

I'm guessing that "Sarah" is my personal user collection of folders or shell folders. It has already "collected" stuff that I don't want to see there. I'd like to clean it up, but I'll settle for getting rid of these bits of trash first.

Thank for any insights.

Re: in Win Explorer, what are those stupid shortcuts on my tree, and what use are the

Those are most likely junction points. Svrops.com - Windows Vista Junction Points

Re: in Win Explorer, what are those stupid shortcuts on my tree, and what use are the

Most of those are system folders. I presume you have hidden items set to visible.
%appdata% is basically data application store
Local settings are I believe various per user specific settings apps save
Cookies tend to be iexplore cookies.

(Might be wrong on all accounts of course)
Though there's a possibility that UAC will not allow a non-admin account access to them if enabled. Which might give you the access denied|location not available

Just try writing %appdata% into the address bar to see where it takes you to. Should take you to %homepath%\appdata\roaming

EDIT

Paperlapap, Ignore me.

Re: in Win Explorer, what are those stupid shortcuts on my tree, and what use are the

sarah451 said:

I understand and use Computer, and I'm finding Public useful, but in Sarah, there are some shortcuts that don't go anywhere, e.g., application data, local settings, my documents, cookies, etc. When I left-click on them, all I ever get is "location not available" "access denied" with blather in between.

What I want to know:
Do they have a name? I tried hunting for info on them, but without a specific name for them, it's impossible.
What earthly use are those shortcuts supposed to be if you can't click on them and go anywhere?
Is there someplace else that they show up or do they only exist in explorer under the user name?
If they do show somewhere else, are they any use there?
Can they be safely deleted? I've already tried moving them and you can't.

I'm guessing that "Sarah" is my personal user collection of folders or shell folders. It has already "collected" stuff that I don't want to see there. I'd like to clean it up, but I'll settle for getting rid of these bits of trash first.

Thank for any insights.

Click to expand...

Sarah, the problem is NOT the folders. The problem is that you can't access the folders, and that's a problem that can be solved. Putting that issue aside for the moment, for me, ALL of the folders you mentioned are extremely useful, and I wouldn't want to get rid of any of them!

The Sarah Folder: This is essentially your personal area of the computer, and for me, it's the heart of my system, and where I keep all of the folders that are important to me, i.e. my documents, my music, my photos, shortcuts to my favorite on-line sites, my videos, everything!!! It can be accessed in 2 locations, but I'm assuming that MS put it 'up top' in the easily accessible location because users use it so often (I access my "Sarah" folder many, many times every day!) - so that's a lot easier than having to dig through the C:\ drive every single time you want to access that folder or any of its sub-parts.

For someone who is as seemingly sophisticated as you, I am really surprised that you don't value the folders you listed: For example, My Documents: This is where I keep all of my business and personal files (nicely organized and separated so that I can find everything easily). And, your application data, local settings, cookies. . . Take a good, detailed look at the content of those folders because that's where many of your program files and applications are, your downloads, your temporary internet files, your Favorites, your shared music, your searches, and many, many other files and folders that you will most undoubtedly want (or need) to access in the coming months/years.

Re: in Win Explorer, what are those stupid shortcuts on my tree, and what use are the

AAAAHHHhhhhhh! Thank you all! Excellent information.

Thanks much, WHS. Now that I know those are "junction points," I can read up on them and decide what to do about them. Looks like they are primarily for backward compatibility.

Junk, you are correct, I always run with everything visible; I dislike big brother hiding things from me on principle. I get it now that they are the XP names for things that got moved/renamed in Vista. I've already found the places in Vista where things got moved to.

Imperfect1, I get your point, but the reason that I don't value the documents folder and others is that, 6 years ago, shortly after I got my first laptop, I also got a wireless router and a Network Attached Storage device. All my files live on the NAS so that I can get them from any PC in the house. I rerouted docs, pics, music, etc to virtual drives on the NAS in XP, and will do the same in Vista if I find the need. My downloads include things like hand embroidery patterns which are sorted into folders by type of embroidery, machine embroidery patterns which are on a different partition and sorted by vendor and designer, so you can see why I wouldn't want all those things dumped together in a generic pot where I could never sort them out again. Besides which, although the NAS is only 350G, it's still much larger than the original hd in my XP system, which would never have held all the files I have.

Again, thank you all.

Re: in Win Explorer, what are those stupid shortcuts on my tree, and what use are the

sarah451 said:

Imperfect1, I get your point, but the reason that I don't value the documents folder and others is that, 6 years ago, shortly after I got my first laptop, I also got a wireless router and a Network Attached Storage device. All my files live on the NAS so that I can get them from any PC in the house. I rerouted docs, pics, music, etc to virtual drives on the NAS in XP, and will do the same in Vista if I find the need. My downloads include things like hand embroidery patterns which are sorted into folders by type of embroidery, machine embroidery patterns which are on a different partition and sorted by vendor and designer, so you can see why I wouldn't want all those things dumped together in a generic pot where I could never sort them out again. Besides which, although the NAS is only 350G, it's still much larger than the original hd in my XP system, which would never have held all the files I have.

Click to expand...

Sarah, point taken, and your method sounds like it works very well for you. But just a comment in response to your thoughts about the My Documents folder. How the folder is used determines whether or not it's a "generic pot." Case in point: I'm an attorney and have not only all my personal files in My Documents, but it also holds 25 years worth of all of my legal files and client's files, and as you can imagine, most of us attorneys are very obsessive (and perhaps a bit anal) about how we keep our files. Needless to say, every client's file and every legal file is in a separate folder, and each is organized into multiple layers of sub-folders that individually cover every detailed aspect of their cases. But, the point is, the umbrella folder that holds them all is My Documents (which in my case, is currently over 1.6 Gigabytes in size), and My Documents can be utilized to be very detailed and exacting -- depending on how you organize it. Just some food for thought. . .

Re: in Win Explorer, what are those stupid shortcuts on my tree, and what use are the

I understand, Imperfect1. My subdirectories are almost always several layers deep to keep things organized. The partitions on the NAS simply function as primary subdirectories off the root. I'll match my organization to yours any day, and I can't get sued for losing things as you probably could! You can think of my NAS as simply an exceptionally large "my documents." I still wouldn't want to keep files in My Documents, because anything in it can't be accessed from another PC unless that PC is turned on. Everything on the NAS can be accessed from any PC without any other PC being on. And I don't have to remember which PC has what files; they are all in one place -- just as if they were in "my documents."

Re: in Win Explorer, what are those stupid shortcuts on my tree, and what use are the

sarah451 said:

I understand, Imperfect1. My subdirectories are almost always several layers deep to keep things organized. The partitions on the NAS simply function as primary subdirectories off the root. I'll match my organization to yours any day, and I can't get sued for losing things as you probably could! You can think of my NAS as simply an exceptionally large "my documents." I still wouldn't want to keep files in My Documents, because anything in it can't be accessed from another PC unless that PC is turned on. Everything on the NAS can be accessed from any PC without any other PC being on. And I don't have to remember which PC has what files; they are all in one place -- just as if they were in "my documents."

Click to expand...

You're right, you've essentially got your "My Documents" folder on your NAS. One of the neat things about almost all of the incarnations of Windows, is that for many functions, there's more than one way to skin a cat! The important thing for BOTH of us is that we can store our important information in a way that is the most useful to us. I think keeping your files in a common source that can always be accessed by multiple computers, is great, and something to think about for everyone who has more than one system!