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#1
Is it OK not to use Documents folder?
I keep my data files just about anywhere except 'My Documents'. Some are in subfolders of the program that runs them. Others are in folders named 'Downloads', 'Business', 'Computer-related' 'Temp' and similar, on the C: drive. My photographs are on drives devoted solely to photograhs. I have no music or video. My email is stored on an Exchange server.
I have used this general structure through every change in Windows from 3.1 onwards. It works for me, and I like it. I have thousands of data files, many in an elaborate hierarchy of subfolders, and can't just hurl them into an undifferentiated Documents folder and hope to find them again. If I moved them to subfolders of Documents, I'd essentially be re-creating the already-existing folder structure of the C: drive, which seems to me a little crazy. And it would be one more click to open them (in my Windows Explorer replacement: I never open anything from the Start Menu). I've always thought it was OK to do as I've been doing, because a number of programs offer a choice of where to store data files.
But today I contacted tech support for a shareware notes program that I run (and whose data files I store in the program's folder under C:\Program Files (x86)\.....). He said:
"In Vista/Windows 7, etc, you are not supposed put any writable files under Program Files, or for that matter, in arbitrary folders in your windows drive......You should be keeping them with your other application documents, either in Documents folder, its subfolders or if you prefer to keep in your own folders, another drive letter altogether."
So I am wondering: is he right, and is there a genuine, computer-related reason not to save data files in subfolders of the program that runs them? They are backed up several times a day to external HDs, and to date I've never had a problem that struck me as related to the locations of my data files.
Thanks
Mary