Strange folder renaming

hhambly · 28 Mar 2011

Dear All. Just bought a new PC. Runs W7 Home Premium 64-Bit. I'm new to W7 but have used previous Windows versions for years and years (but not Vista). And I've never seen this happen with any other operating system. Out of the box, W7 sets up this "My Documents" & "Public Documents" system of folders (and the same for pictures, music and videos). And that's great for separating each user's documents and providing common folders which all users can see. But, shortly after setting my new PC up (installed a printer & some other hardware bits, installed Office & copied my document files across from the old PC), Windows suddenly renamed the "My" & "Public" versions of the documents, music & videos folders. Looking at it all via my own account (I'm admin, by the way), I had folders called "Documents" & "Documents" instead of "My Documents" and "Public Documents" (and the same for music & videos). But it kindly left me with "My Pictures" and "Public Pictures" folders. This has actually happened on two machines now. It happened on the original new PC. But the store exchanged it with an identical new machine. But the same thing has happened. Has anyone seen this before? It worries me. Cheers, Ollie.

Mike Connor · 28 Mar 2011

hhambly said:

<SNIP>

But it kindly left me with "My Pictures" and "Public Pictures" folders. This has actually happened on two machines now. It happened on the original new PC. But the store exchanged it with an identical new machine. But the same thing has happened. Has anyone seen this before? It worries me. Cheers, Ollie.

If you copy default folders from other installations then this can cause problems. Don't copy the folders, copy the files they contain to where you want them.

Regards....Mike Connor

Regards

Orbital Shark · 28 Mar 2011

Hi, welcome to the forums :)

You'll find that Windows 7 uses a Libraries feature which consolidates all files/folders to within that 1 virtual/link folder. If you navigate to C:\users\[your user] then you should still see that you have a My Documents folder.

Have a look at the following Microsoft Technet page and it will give you a more detailed look atexactly what the Libraries is and how it works.

Windows 7 Libraries - Organize and Find Files, Folders | TechNet

OS

hhambly · 28 Mar 2011

Hi Mike. Thanks. I'll have a look. But Windows is behaving strangely with folder names on my PC. You know that it left me with "My Pictures" and "Public Pictures" (whilst renaming the documents, music & videos folders)? Hmmm, but I'm not so sure after all. In Windows Explorer, in the tree part on the left-hand side), I've got the path "C\Users\Public\Public Pictures\Nikon D700\0001". I have a D700 DSLR (very nice!) and I'm just quoting sample photo folder 0001 here. But if I go to one of the photo files (JPegs) in folder 0001 and right-click to get the properties box for that JPeg, the properties box gives the path as "C\Users\Public\Pictures\Nikon D700\0001". You see the "My Pictures"/"Pictures" confusion? In the tree, there *is* no "Pictures" directory under...Users\Public. Again, I've never seen this with W3.1, 2008 & XP - a directory name/path is what it is - it doesn't change at Windows' whim! Certainly, if I saw this on a UNIX system, I'll fall off my chair! Again, grateful for any further advice. Cheers, Ollie.

Mike Connor · 28 Mar 2011

Please read what Orbital Shark posted above. Windows 7 uses various technologies which rely on "Virtual" folders. These don't work like the physical data paths you are used to.

Just to give you a very broad idea of the basics, a "Virtual" folder does not contain the actual data, only references to the data location. Can be a bit hard to grasp at first.

For some more info on what this means for users, have a look here; http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b...libraries.aspx

<http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/developers/archive/2009/04/06/understanding-windows-7-libraries.aspx>

Regards....Mike Connor

Mike Connor · 28 Mar 2011

PS. There is a lot of controversy about libraries. Some users disable many features. as described here;

How to Disable “Libraries” Feature in Windows 7? - Tweaking with Vishal

<http://www.askvg.com/how-to-disable-libraries-feature-in-windows-7/>

But I don't advise you to do this. Try it out first. It can be extremely difficult, to the point of hair-tearing frustration and beyond, getting to know some of these new features, most especially for users who are used to other systems and expect certain things to work in certain ways.

Regards....Mike Connor

kado897 · 28 Mar 2011

As Orbital Shark says. The My folders are not real folders. They are Junction points which refer to the original folder. For instance your Documents folder is pointed to by the MyDocuments junction point. This is done for backwards compatibility with older programs which night have hard coded paths.