Vista - Moving folder locations

Vista adds the useful capability of re-directing a folder to a different location, e.g. C:\Users\Bob\Favorites to D:\Bob\Favorites. Use it to get your data away from the OS, or gain concurency from the use of two disks.

Do this:
Just drag your folder from where it is now onto the folder you want it to be in, then on the drop select "Redirect Folder" in the context menu where the choices previously were only "Copy" and "Move".

What happened:
Doing this will 1) move the folder and contents to the drop point, then 2) create a re-direct placeholder folder where the folder previously lived. The file-system automatically knows when a placeholder folder is accessed to traverse to the new location.

Now, if you've already tried moving a folder location in Vista you probably haven't read this far because you're already trying "Do this" and are looking in context menus. Why? Just search the internet for all the problems everyone has moving folder locations and that will tell you how insufficiently miserable the Vista implementation of this feature is.

My experience:
1) Not all folders have the "location" tab in the properties dialog.
2) The way in which you access a folder determines if the "location" tab is visible, i.e. Start->Username vs. Right-mouse->Start->explore to Username. One shows the tab, the other doesn't.
3) The location tab button says "move <folder> to" - I put in <folder> because it's on the property of the folder object I'm pushing the moving button - but it's not the folder that gets moved. It's the contents of the folder. Note that's the opposite of drag-and-drop. Easily to get confused.
4) Once "move to" is pressed, the option of choosing to move the folders is useless. That's why I'm re-directing the folder. And the ensuing warning about having two folders if I choose to not to move the folder's contents is additional confusion.
5) If you accidently use the "drag-and-drop" model and move the re-directed folder's contents to the folder above where you intended, use of the "Restore default location" button becomes bizarre. "Do you want to move the contents"? NO,NO it was my error, I just want to undo. There are other files at that level. "You may end up with two folders". Where? Why? HELP!
6) Oh, and don't forget to create in the new location the folder you want to re-direct. Be sure to check permissions on that created file, too, or things like IE won't find the Favorites folder where you bookmarked instructions on how to "redirect folders".
7) Try changing the location of "C:\Users\<user>\Searches" to "D:\<user>". Oops, it should have been "D:\<user>\Searches". Undo by "Restore Default Location" choosing to manually drag and drop the "Searches" contents to "C:\Users\<user>\Searches". Now, Start->explore and you may get the error dialog "Location is not available" "C:\Users\<user>\Searches\Desktop". Note this message does not tell you who is looking for "C:\Users\<user>\Searches\Desktop". It only tells you something is looking for it. Remember "File is in use!"? Whose using it? Gosh, forgot the procedure to delete a file was to reboot first. Okay, lets create a folder "C:\Users\<user>\Searches\Desktop" just for whomever seems to be looking for it. Now reboot. Notice your desktop shortcuts have all disappeared. Take a deep breath, stand back, take time to examine all three <user> folders. One's Start-><user>, the second is C:\Users<user>, and the third is D:\<user>. What do you see? Betcha can't guess. Nope, wrong. You've lost D:\<user>. It's no longer there. Take a really long deep breath. Think about the name of a unique folder you had in D:\<user>, ahhh, ".emacs". Now search the entire system for ".emacs" hoping .... bygosh, there it is in "D:\Searches". Holy cow, somewhere in all that the "D:\<user>" got renamed to "D:\Searches". Stop...

Bottom Line:
BE PERPARED TO SPEND TEN TIMES MORE TIME RELOCATING FOLDERS THAN YOU THINK POSSIBLE!

This may help with this as well:

Personal User Shell Folders - Move Location

Shawn

I read your blurb several times a month ago - clear enough and helpful. Nevertheless, just from incorrectly moving the Search folder and choosing to default it back really messed up the links, causing a time-sinkhole to fix.

A simple study of Unix's symbolic links reveals the implementation hasn't changed in 30 years, a testament to it's success. I see no sense in the Vista implementation compared to that.

Why is it so difficult to redirect my user folder? I'll probably be asking that for years!

I hear you. I always advise to leave them be unless you just really need or have to.

Shawn