Vista - V i s t a F o l d e r H e i r a r c h y

I have installed vista HE premium. i am having difficulty in understanding
how all the folders are linked together.

in the left hand explorer pane i see:

desktop, then below it i see 'steven' (me!) in a small green icon. if i
expand it i see lots of other folders including another green icon called
'documents'.

if i expand this, i see three more icons 'my pictures my music my videos'
and a yellow folder 'my received files, however the green icons here are
shown as shortcuts (they have the small arrow in the corner)

even further down the folder tree i have green icons called 'my documents'
with 'my music, my videos and my pictures' within.

these are also shown as shortcuts and so now i have two lots of documents
folders in the left pane....

if i then scroll down to the c: drive and navigate to c: \documents and
settings\steven (this is how i am used to finding these folders), i find
even more pictures/music/videos folders only this time they are traditional
yellow folders and not green icons.

by now i am totally confused. why can i not just have one simple folder
tree????

the reason why i want to sort this out is that i want to put my
pictures/music/docs onto seperate partitions, therefore i need to change the
default positions of the docs folder, or my docs folder or which ever one it
is!

i understand that i can right click on the folder (and the shortcut on the
start menu) and 'move' the folders but i have done this twice now and it all
gets horribly messy when it asks "do you want to move all of this folders
contents to the new location"?

somehow the transition isn't smooth and there ends up being folders all over
the place. once i've cocked it up i go back to 'restore default settings'
for each folder but errors occur and the folders and shortcuts are all
messed up.

i have resorted to re-installing vista twice now to correct the problems. i
want the following:

d:\my documents
m:\my music
p:\my pictures
v:\my videos
t:\temp files

i have had the arrangement on XP for four years but cannot fathom it on
vista.

i want to get rid of all the duplicated folders in explorer as well.

can anyone shed any light on this????



thanks.

"Rat_uk" <ratty@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:C21D8D33-4F92-45F4-9701-F903585F6162@microsoft.com...
>I have installed vista HE premium. i am having difficulty in understanding
> how all the folders are linked together.
>
> in the left hand explorer pane i see:
>
> desktop, then below it i see 'steven' (me!) in a small green icon. if i
> expand it i see lots of other folders including another green icon called
> 'documents'.
>
> if i expand this, i see three more icons 'my pictures my music my videos'
> and a yellow folder 'my received files, however the green icons here are
> shown as shortcuts (they have the small arrow in the corner)
>
> even further down the folder tree i have green icons called 'my documents'
> with 'my music, my videos and my pictures' within.
>
> these are also shown as shortcuts and so now i have two lots of documents
> folders in the left pane....
>
> if i then scroll down to the c: drive and navigate to c: \documents and
> settings\steven (this is how i am used to finding these folders), i find
> even more pictures/music/videos folders only this time they are
> traditional
> yellow folders and not green icons.
>
> by now i am totally confused. why can i not just have one simple folder
> tree????
>
> the reason why i want to sort this out is that i want to put my
> pictures/music/docs onto seperate partitions, therefore i need to change
> the
> default positions of the docs folder, or my docs folder or which ever one
> it
> is!
>
> i understand that i can right click on the folder (and the shortcut on the
> start menu) and 'move' the folders but i have done this twice now and it
> all
> gets horribly messy when it asks "do you want to move all of this folders
> contents to the new location"?
>
> somehow the transition isn't smooth and there ends up being folders all
> over
> the place. once i've cocked it up i go back to 'restore default settings'
> for each folder but errors occur and the folders and shortcuts are all
> messed up.
>
> i have resorted to re-installing vista twice now to correct the problems.
> i
> want the following:
>
> d:\my documents
> m:\my music
> p:\my pictures
> v:\my videos
> t:\temp files
>
> i have had the arrangement on XP for four years but cannot fathom it on
> vista.
>
> i want to get rid of all the duplicated folders in explorer as well.
>
> can anyone shed any light on this????


The folder structure used in Windows XP is carried over to Vista for
compatibility of programs, but those are not real folders. For example the
Documents and Settings folder is a junction point, all it contains is a link
to the real folder where the files are kept. Any folders that have the
curved arrow overlay and are dimmed are junctions or symbolic links. You
don't need to go into those folders. To see the where these folders link
open an elevated command prompt, navigate to the folder has these junctions
and type:
dir /aL /s

Junction points are labeled as such along with the path to which they link.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]