Windows 7: My Documents redirection bug

I'm sure many of you know that when you redirect My Documents to another location using the location option, Windows will display that folder as "My Documents", even though clicking on the address bar will reveal that the folder retains its original name. I suppose this in and of itself is a "feature" and not a bug.

The problem is that if you redirect My Documents again (let's say back to the default directory), Windows will continue to display the other folder as "My Documents". This is because it does not delete the desktop.ini file that it creates there. This is a bug as far as I can tell.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, do the following:

1. Create a directory (e.g. C:\test)
2. Right-click your My Documents folder and in the Location tab type C:\test
3. the directory C:\test will now appear as C:\My Documents
4. Now right click C:\My Documents, and in the Location tab point it back to the original location (or click Restore Default)
5. C:\test will still display as C:\My Documents

To fix it:



6. In Folder Options turn off the "hide protected operating system files" option
7. Go into the C:\My Documents folder and delete desktop.ini
8. Windows will now properly display the folder as C:\test

Hope that helps somebody!

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Hello,

I have found a similar thing, but with more weird issues. After I redirect the "My Documents" folder from

C:\Users\Name\Documents to E:\Users\Name\Documents,

it shows up in my profile as

%USERPROFILE%\Documents instead of %USERPROFILE%\My Documents

After this, I had a Documents folder and "My Documents" folder in my profile. The Documents folder pointed to the new location, whereas the My Documents folder pointed to the old.

Whats is even more strange is that the Documents folder can be redirected back, and it merges the two. However, the My Documents folder is just the physical folder, C:\Use...\My Documents, and cannot be redirected.

I just want to redirect the My Documents to another folder, then be able to have programs access it successfully with %USERPROFILE%\My Documents.

If, after I redirect, I rename my new physical folder "My Documents" the system is nice and creates a desktop.ini file and everything is pretty. However, I don't want the folder named "My Documents"... no one likes spaces, right?

Any thoughts?

You must delete the desktop.ini file in order for the folder to show the correct user name. The question I have is how do you stop this from being created in the first place?