need help recreating "c:\desktop"

[KRH]

In moving my 64 bit Windows 7 Ultimate platform to a new computer, I'm trying to recreate a folder I had on the old one, "c:\Desktop". It contained all of the folders and files and only the folders and files actually present on my user's desktop. The desktop shortcut in the "Favorites" folder points to "c:\Desktop". Opening that shortcut folder shows the complete list of all folders and files on all user desktops but but only those that are physically on my user desktop appear in the target folder. From my administrator account, the desktop shortcut in Favorites points to the administrator desktop and the shortcut folder displays only those contents, but  c:\Desktop still displays only my user desktop files and folders! I think I set that folder up initially in order to have quick and easy access to my user desktop while logged in as administrator but it's become very useful in many other ways.

 

On the new computer, moving my user desktop from users\me\desktop c:\desktop displays only the only the files and folders I've personally created and the shortcut folder in Favorites still points to "users\me\desktop". Similarly, moving the public desk to to c:\desktop shows only icons created by program installations and the shortcut folder points to "users\public\desktop".

 

I can't remember how I did it, I can't find any documentation as to how I did it, and Googling has been totally fruitless.  How did I do it? (What I mean, of course, is that if you were I, how would you do it?)

[KRH]

I haven't solved this yet but I'm getting closer. I have a vague memory of removing "Libraries" from Windows Explorer view 2 or 3 years ago on the old computer but before I did, I had to take care of something, and I'm sure that that was moving the merged desk top folder I had created from Libraries to the root drive. Now, I see two tasks:

 

1. I need to merge my user and public desktop folders using Libraries. The easy way to merge true folders in Windows is to rename one folder to match another in the same root, which gives you the opportunity to just overwrite any common files. So far, I haven't found any way to do that in Libraries. It won't allow me to rename a folder to that of another. I'm sure there must be a way to merge 2 libraries, or 2 library sub-folders, into one folder without sub-folders but I haven't been able to get anything to work.

 

2. I need to be able to move the merged folder to c:\desktop.

 

 

Edit: As an experiment, I put my user desktop in Libraries, added a folder (c:\desktop) to that, and made it that the default save location, but when I add a test item to my physical desktop, it's still saved only to my user desktop while c:\desktop remains empty, both in Windows Explorer and the Libraries view. I'm completely mystified be that but it's typical of how things are going.

 

Edit 2: Failed experiment: I redirected the save locations for user and public user desktop locations directly from their c:users folders to c:\desktop. That made a nice looking c:\desktop folder but put dupes for everything on my physical desktop and deleting one instance deleted both, both from the physical desktop and from the respective users' folders. Got to get those folders truly merged so that their are no dupes.

Edited May 4, 2015 by KRH

[KRH]

Eureka! The solution turned out to be absurdly simple. First, I created the folder, "c:\desktop".  Then, using the location tab from the properties dialogue of the desktop folder in my user folders, I moved that folder to c:\desktop. I'm not sure how I had tried to do it in the first place, but this time it changed the appearance of c:\desktop by adding an icon overlay in the image of a desktop (as on the old computer), it displayed the files and folders in my user desktop folder, and the shortcut folder in Favorites now pointed to c:\desktop. Finally,  I renamed the Public Desktop to just "Desktop" and moved it in the same way (in order to make the location of that folder editable, even when logged in as administrator, it's necessary to temporarily disable UAC). Voila! C:\desktop, in all it's glory! My user desktop and the public desktop are merged and the folder shows all the files, folders, and shortcuts, and only those, physically present on my desktop.

 

But the story has a twist. At a certain point, I realized that having all those shortcut icons from the public desktop in the c:\desktop folder view is really of no value in browsing, downloading, etc., and just creates distracting clutter, so I restored the public desktop to it's original location. All I wound up with was a view of my  user desktop by opening one folder instead of three, but that made it all worthwhile. It's actually an improvement over what I had on the old computer, although it's taken me a few years to realize it.

 

I apologize for making a simple issue so complicated.