Redirecting shell folders.......

Falvinp · Jun 21, 2010

This will be a log post regarding redirecting the Vista personal shell folders.

I have recently reinstalled Vista home premium onto another hard drive while retaining my old boot drive. I have both a full backup, on another drive, created with Apricorn EZ Gig II, as well as the data on the old boot drive that I can easily access via eSata with the Voyager S2 external hard disk dock.

I’ve read in the past that it’s good to separate your data from programs, making potential problems easier to deal with. I’d experimented with using the “move” command under “properties” for the shell folders a year or so ago, with not-so-good results. After having some problems, I was able to relocate the personal folders back to the default location and didn’t think about it again until now.

I had read earlier that it’s best to relocate (redirect?) the personal shell folders when there aren’t too many programs or data on the computer.

I’ve been going fairly slowly in putting back both programs and data onto my machine. I’ve done some research on the redirection issue. I sometimes get conflicting information.

I want to get this right because I have a lot of data to put back on………. Over 300 gig of photos, videos, music etc.

I want to put most, if not all, my data on a separate drive, drive e.

I’ve put a few programs back on the computer before I decided to do this. Those programs are:

Microst Office 2003 standard, including Word, Excel, and Outlook, which I use for email. I don’t use Windows mail at all.

Norton Internet Security 2007, which was recently upgrading for free (with current subscription) to Internet Security 2010. There is a Symantec folder nested in the documents folder.

Apricorn EZ Gig II to have access to the full backup on another drive

Hp solution Center for my Photosmart C7180 and HP Photosmart Essentials

Firefox web browser I have the default download location set to the download folder. There is a place to change this.

Skype Can’t find anything about any storage folder

Yahoo Messenger I’ve got this set up to store chat sessions, but I can’t find where the program stores them. There is no Yahoo folder that I can find that would hold chats, but I haven’t chatted since the reinstall. Maybe it creates a program when a chat is automatically saved.

Photodex Proshow Producer 4

Installed Logitech QuickCam communicator and software. This program does put a Logitech folder in both the pictures and videos personal folders. I found how to change the default storage locations for the web cam.

Gosh, now that I’ve written them down, I guess I have put more than just a few programs back on.

I have read the tutorial titled “How to Change a Personal User Folder Location in Vista” available on this site.

I’ll try to go slow with my questions.

The first question I have is Do you have to actually create a folder in the new location? Some sources say yes, others say that the program will create the folder if it doesn’t exist.

If I do have to create a folder, do I have nest them within a created “user” with my personal folder name folder like they originally occur? I am the only user of this computer and don’t use a password to get into Windows.

If I’m successful in redirecting the folders, where do I copy my data to, the original location, which will then automatically put the data in the new location, or should I copy data directly to the new location?

If I create folders within the personal folders in the new location, will data automatically be put in them? For example, if I create a “June” folder under pictures, will that folder show up when I point to it in say, Photoshop Elements, and will it work properly?

After redirecting the folders, will any program subsequently installed be OK………… ie…… Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements etc.?

I hope this post isn’t too disjointed. This is a complex issue for me and, since I have so much existing data, I want to do it right.

Thank you for your assistance.

Brink · Jun 21, 2010

Hello Falvinp, and welcome to Vista Forums.

This tutorial below can help guide and show you how to safely move your user folders to another location. Either method will work, but just be sure to follow it step by step to avoid and problems.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/107990-personal-user-shell-folders-move-location.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Falvinp · Jun 23, 2010

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I am still in need of the answers to my questions above. Some things just don’t make sense to me.

Thank you for the link to the tutorial. However, as I indicated in my post above, I’ve read your tutorial, although I identified it via the title of the tutorial (How to Change a Personal User Folder Location in Vista) and not the title of the actual post (Personal User Shell Folders-Move Location). This seems to be the most complete information out there, and it will be the method I’ll use when I ultimately redirect the folders, but it still conflicts with other information out there.

Conflicting information aside, I would really appreciate some clarification per my questions in my earlier post.

I’m very concerned with your warning in the pink box at the beginning of the tutorial. If I don’t get this figured out, I may end up with duplicate folders that I can’t delete. Even though I plan on performing a system restore before moving each folder, I still want to try to do it right the first time. I plan to do a system restore before redirecting a folder and then move data into that folder.
I’ll do this for each folder I plan to move.

First of all, after I change the location of any folders created by programs and then perform the move, does this mean that any program I subsequently install that creates their own folders within the shell folders will automatically created in the new location?

With the programs currently installed on my system, I’ve determined that only the Logitech webcam software and Norton create their own folders within the shell folders. I’ve figured out how to change storage locations in the webcam software and I’m asking for help with the same issue on the Norton forums.

However, in your pink box warning, you state regarding folders a program may create….

“you do not want to change it's location until you change the setting in the program to use another folder or the new personal folder location.”

However, in step 4. C),D) you make it clear that during the “move” operation you right click to create a new folder where you want the info to go and then rename the folder to the shell folder’s original name.

So….. how can I direct programs to create their folders into a location that has not been created yet? Sorry if I’m sounding dense, but this just doesn’t make sense to me. What am I missing?

I’ve just been informed, via the Norton forum, that I can’t change the location where Norton Internet Security stores the product key. That’s really unfortunate, since now I won’t be able to move the documents folder. Do any of you have any experience with this?

I just had a thought. If I were to uninstall Norton, redirect the documents folder, and then reinstall Norton, would the Norton folder be created in the redirected location?

I’d very much appreciate clarification from the community concerning the following questions:

If I’m successful in redirecting the folders, where do I copy my data to, the original location, which will then automatically put the data in the new location, or should I copy data directly to the new location?

If I create folders within the personal folders in the new location, will they show up in the folder tree within Windows Explorer and will data automatically be put in them? For example, if I create a “June” folder under pictures, will that folder show up when I point to it in say, Photoshop Elements, and will it work properly?

After redirecting the folders, will any program subsequently installed be OK………… ie…… Photoshop Elements, Premiere Elements, iTunes, Sonicfire Pro, etc.?

This concept is very confusing to me. I want to be sure I do it right.

Thank you very much for your assistance.

Brink · Jun 23, 2010

Falvin,

No problem.

If the user folders are moved properly as done exactly step by step in the tutorial above, then all data in them will automatically get moved over to the new location as well. You will still be able to open the user folders from the Start Menu as usual and open from the new location. However, the moved user folder will no longer be in the C:\Users\(user-name) location in Windows Explorer. The moved user folder will be at the location you moved it to instead.

If you are going to move user folders to another location, then I would only recommended moving the Music, Pictures, and Videos user folders and no other ones. This is to help avoid possible issues with duplicate user folders when older programs save files in the user folders at the original location instead of the new moved location. When this happens, another user folder will be created at the original location. Some programs may have a setting in them so that you can change where they save file to so you can change it to the new location of the moved user folder. Programs are not installed in the user folders. If you have a program that creates another duplicate user folder and the program doesn't have a way to change where it saves to, then you will just need to delete any duplicate user folders and restore the user folder's default location. You will not be able to move this user folder then if you are unable to change the location in the program to prevent a duplicate user folder.

In step 4 of METHOD ONE in the tutorial, you can do this while in the process of moving the folder since you are creating and naming the new folder while you select it all at the same time. It doesn't actually move the user folder until you are through naming the new folder and clicking on Select Folder.

Redirecting shell folders.......

Falvinp

My Computer

System One

Brink

My Computers

System One System Two