Changing locations of "My Documents" "My Pictures"

[LordFett]

I keep all my documents and personal files on a hard drive seperate from my windows and programs. This way if I have to do a restore or reformat all of my files are in a different location. In XP "My documents" was easily changed with a right click and then on the location tab you remapped it. You can do this with the libraries in Win7 but most programs still default save/open to c:\users\user_profle\My Documents or c:\users\user_profle\Downloads.

Right clicking these folders do not give the location tab or any other way to remap them. I found a work-around but wonder if there is an easier way, or possibly a registry setting. You can get the location tab on properties through an Open or Save as browse window. Just open Word or Notepad and hit CTRL+O and then right click the folder you want to remap and do so just as you would've done in XP.

[showtimeftp]

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\Explorer\Shell Folders\

and

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Currentversion\Explorer\User Shell Folders\

change away but remember to backup your registry

and to move the profile location say to another drive

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\

the variables for Default, Public and ProfilesDirectory are there i've made the mistake of deleting the Profiles (Users) folder from my C drive after i changed the location to drive D and was unable to Login any new users because the "Default" folder which is hidden was not copied to the to the new location so if you change the locaion of the default folder like i did remember to BACKUP the current default profile and copy it to the new location hope i've been helpful

Edited November 20, 2009 by showtimeftp

[awergh]

No location tab thats a bit strange I have it. Although for some reason there are 2 My Documents Directories one with a location tab and one without

[neutrino123]

@LordFett

Go to documents library, it will say Includes: 2 location, click on 2 location, right click on the location you want to set as default, and set it, now everything go there by default .

@showtimeftp

For Windows 7 it's easy to move My document, thus don't mess with registry like good old XP.

If you want to move profiles (c:\user), just make use of ntfs symbolic link (mklink), it can be done safely without touching registry.

To repair your user profile problem, put in your windows 7 installation, mount sources\install.wim, use robocopy, copy user directory form your mount path to c drive, that will solve your problem. Wim itself is a compress file, like zip, rar, 7z is able to open it and extract files without mounting, however will the security, attribute, be copy is the question. If you try the 7z extraction method, please post your result.

Edited November 21, 2009 by neutrino123

[chantszhim]

You just need to drag the folder to the place you want, the registry will follow the new location to change autoly.

[LordFett]

@LordFett

Go to documents library, it will say Includes: 2 location, click on 2 location, right click on the location you want to set as default, and set it, now everything go there by default.

You can do this with the libraries in Win7 but most programs still default save/open to c:\users\user_profle\My Documents or c:\users\user_profle\Downloads.

I said I did that in my first post.

[neutrino123]

@LordFett

Go to documents library, it will say Includes: 2 location, click on 2 location, right click on the location you want to set as default, and set it, now everything go there by default.

You can do this with the libraries in Win7 but most programs still default save/open to c:\users\user_profle\My Documents or c:\users\user_profle\Downloads.

I said I did that in my first post.

I'm asking you not only to add it to library, but to set it as default, using this method now, it's working for me, please share, what's not working.

Edited November 23, 2009 by neutrino123

[Maleko]

I do the same thing, have documents on a different drive. this is easy to do:

Navigate to C:\Users\*username*

Right click on the folders and change the location like you did in XP.