Vista Tutorial - Personal User Shell Folders - Move Location

Ok, I don't want to be a hater, but these directions were horrible. There needs to be a thread with directions on how to restore the folders if the user knows they have been deleted.

Here they are:

Go to Run Menu (Winkey+r)
Type Shell:nameoffolder (ex, Shell:Music, or Shell:Pictures)

If that doesn't do it, go to Regedit
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

Ensure that the the folder you want to fix looks like this %USERPROFILE%\nameoffolder
If not make it that way by right clicking and then hit Modify

Then restart computer,
Then do the shell command
Open Run Menu
Shell:nameoffolder

Voila

Now I could sit here and make them more detailed, but I just wanted to prove a quick point. Those directions were a pile of spaghetti wrapped in an enigma on top of a conundrum served with riddles.

JC

Hi JC,

Thank you for your suggestion. It probably will be easier to understand if the tutorial was split into two separate ones instead. This tutorial was meant mostly for relocating a user folder, and how to restore it back. I'll get on it hopefully soon.

Shawn

Ok JC,

It has been completed. How does it look to you?

Personal User Folder - Restore Missing Folder

Shawn

A follow-up question. I have all of the personal files safely moved to a different partition. Complete with green folder and the original folder name in explorer and Office 2007 programs. But...in some programs, the folder is identified as new1, new2, etc.. I don't suppose there is a way to change that, is there?

DonH,

Interesting. What programs are these showing up like this? Any particular user folder they ID as this?

Shawn

Shawn,

The programs that I notice it in are Edit Pad Pro, Dreamweaver, and other programs that display the full path to a file on a status bar rather than use the vista navigation box. I can navigate to, say Documents, and see the junction in the file drop down dialogs. It's when the programs use the full path outside of the vista templates that they show as "new1" or whatever number.

Don

That's what I thought Don. The programs seem like they are still trying to place their folder inside of the default user folder location causing this "new1". Is there a option in the programs to change the location to where it places it's folder? If so, change it to the same location that you moved the user folder to. If not, then you are stuck with the "new1" unless you move that one user folder back to the default location.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

In XP, the My Pictures, My Music and My Videos were all inside the My Documents folder, correct?


What I did in Vista in make the Documents folder the whole partition(D) and then create new folders inside that for the Pictures, Music and Video folders. This should be OK right?

Hi Ford GT,

I'm not sure it is like that or not in XP.

For Vista, this will not be ok though. Each user folder needs to have it's own folder in the C:\Users\(user name) folder only and not inside any other user folder. Placing them inside other user folders like Documents will cause problems.

You can move these folder's location to the D: partition as separate folders if you want to though.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Right, I have them so when something is added or changed in the folders it's redirected to my D: partition instead of the C: partition.