Should I still have "My Documents" icon & others?

I am using a Samsung notebook with a 256 Gb SSD for the C: drive(the OS drive) and a 750 Gb HDD for the E: drive, which is the 2nd internal drive (my Data drive). I am the only user of this computer, and I'm also the administrator.

Soon after install of Win 7, I followed the instructions in this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COIbTlnPI7I

I went into my User Folder(My user name is Tripod-see snips below) and changed the location of Contacts, Desktop, Downloads, Favorites, Links, My Documents, My Music, My Pictures, My Videos, Saved Games, and Searches. I did this just for my user folder, not any others.

I right clicked each, clicked Location, and changed the location for each to E:\
I did not change the location of "AppData" or any other folders or files within my User folder, as instructed in the "Sean's Guide" I was following.

I did this because it is supposed to save a lot of space on the ssd which would have been used by game saves and other data.

After I finish this process, I go to my User folder on C: and it looks empty. (See first snip).

So far so good. But when I go into Windows Explorer-Tools-Folder Options-View, and if I uncheck "Hide protected operating system files" and CHECK "Show Hidden Files. folders, or drives", I now see what is in my 2nd snip. A "My Documents" icon, plus a bunch of others, and a bunch of NTuser files.

I have 3 short questions.

1) Is the hidden "My Documents" icon remaining in my User folder just a remnant which I should delete using safe mode, or should I still be seeing this icon? Sean says in his video there might be an icon left on C, but I don't know if he's referring to a normal folder or the hidden one I'm seeing.

2) Do the rest of the hidden files in my User folder look like they should, or do you see anything there which doesn't belong?

3) I'm setting up Macrium Reflect Free. Will I now have to include my E: Drive in my system images, or since I just redirected the folders, rather than moving them through registry hacks, will I just need what's on my OS drive?



Thanks!

Everything I see here looks 100% normal, including the hidden files. So everything looks normal to me, but only if you deleted the old folders inside of C:\Users\Tripod because mine is not empty like yours is as seen in your first screenshot. I mean, I didn't delete them, so I still have the old ones. That is, my C:\Users\Tim folder (that's me) still has the old folders that used to be the default location for things like Desktop, My Documents, My Pictures, etc.

So, don't delete any of the hidden files or folders. There's actually no reason to. To be honest with you (speaking of hidden folders), if I still wanted to use my Personal Folder and also still have it show up on the Start Menu (like how yours shows "Tripod" on the Start Menu), then I would just have changed the attributes of all the old folder locations to Hidden instead of deleting them. I mean, you never know if you'll need them, right?

The Personal Folder (that is, the folder simply known as "Tripod" for you which is accessible from the Start Menu, or by simply typing "Tripod" in the location bar in any folder) shows everything that's in C:\Users\Tripod and also anything that would otherwise be there if you had not changed the location of any of the folders. I don't know why there's a hidden shortcut to My Documents (I have one too), but it's just a shortcut so you can leave it be. Anyway, that's why you're seeing everything when you're looking at your Personal Folder in comparison to what you're seeing in C:\Users\Tripod.

Now, the remnant folder that Sean is talking about is simply the old folder that's left over in C:\Users\Tripod (or C:\Users\Tim or Sean or whoever). For example: when he changed his C:\Users\Sean\Desktop folder to D:\Desktop, he still had a C:\Users\Sean\Desktop folder, but it was no longer the default location for his Desktop due to changing it to D:\Desktop. At that point, he has 3 things he can do with C:\Users\Sean\Desktop:

1. Leave it alone
2. Change it to Hidden
3. Delete it

The first and 2nd options are the best because again, you never know if you'll need it again. Now, I don't use my Personal Folder so I don't even have a link to it on my Start Menu (I don't see "Tim" anywhere on my Start Menu due to my preferred settings based on not wanting to use that folder anymore), so I didn't delete or hide any of the old folders after changing their default locations. I simply left them there because I only wanted to change the path so that Windows and all programs would know where I wanted everything to go.

Here are the folders that I changed:

1. C:\Users\Tim\Desktop
2. C:\Users\Tim\My Documents
3. C:\Users\Tim\My Music
4. C:\Users\Tim\My Pictures
5. C:\Users\Tim\My Videos
6. C:\Users\Tim\Saved Games

After changing the location of all these folders, I left all of the old folders there in C:\Users\Tim because again, I never use my Personal Folder (which has no actual folder location). This means that if I opened my Personal Folder (and I just did in order to be sure of this), then I would see two of each of these folders. I'd see both the old and the new folders! That is, I'd see 2 x Desktops, 2 x My Documents, 2 x My Musics, 2 x My Pictures, 2 x My Videos, and 2 x Saved Games. Therefore, if I still wanted to use my Personal Folder without having to deal with seeing "duplicates" like this (seeing both the old and the new folders), then I would go into C:\Users\Tim and either delete these old folders, or change them to Hidden. Just to test this in order to be absolutely 100% sure that I'm giving you 100% accurate information, I changed all of these to Hidden and then I went back to my Personal Folder and now it looks good. That is, there's now just 1 of each and the ones I changed are the ones on my D: drive! This means I no longer see the old folders; just the new ones! Cool, huh? :)

Of course, if I enable showing hidden files and folders, then it looks like a big mess just like yours kind of does. So, I don't (plus, I have no need to for normal day-to-day operations).

So finally, after changing the default location for these folders, any program that wants to use one of them will be 'forced' to use the 'new' location because Windows will tell it where the location of this special folder is no matter where it is. There are a few programs that are programmed to actually use C:\Users\You\My Documents or C:\Users\You\Saved Games etc., so just keep an eye on that. Most programs will use your specified location instead of going directly to where the folder usually is by default. I mean, I think I had maybe one game using C:\Users\Tim\Saved Games while the rest used D:\My Documents\Saved Games (yep, that's where I keep it).

In other words, everything looks good to me!

Great answer, and on two different forums!!
I'm not clear on what you meant by deleting the 2nd copy of these folders like My Documents, videos, pictures, etc.
When I changed mine, I just changed the location by using the "Change Location" option within the properties of each folder, and then they appeared in the new location(The E Drive). The prior location(C-Users-Tripod) no longer contained the folders which were moved. The only remnant was the hidden "My Documents" shortcut(Which by the way has no target listed-but none of those shortcuts do for me) I didn't delete anything afterwards, but I know I can always just click "restore Libraries to default location" or something like that and they go right back to their original spots.

Speaking of that, do you know if Macrium Reflect Free will want me to include my E drive on my system images, since those user folders are located there? If so, I may restore them to the defaults and just keep all my actual documents, pix etc in other folders on E.

Thanks,
Ed

EddieTripod said:

Great answer, and on two different forums!!

hehehe! Overclock.net is my stomping ground. :)

EddieTripod said:

I'm not clear on what you meant by deleting the 2nd copy of these folders like My Documents, videos, pictures, etc.
When I changed mine, I just changed the location by using the "Change Location" option within the properties of each folder, and then they appeared in the new location(The E Drive). The prior location(C-Users-Tripod) no longer contained the folders which were moved. The only remnant was the hidden "My Documents" shortcut(Which by the way has no target listed-but none of those shortcuts do for me)

Oh, I just figured out that this is because when I change the location, I'm saying No when it asks if I want to move all of the files to the new location! Ah ha! I just said Yes this time, and it deleted the old folder. lol

When I say No to that question, it creates the new folder for the new location, but the old folder remains. I know why it does this too because it makes sense: if you say No to that question, then it won't delete the old folder because it's like you just said "No, I still have things in there that I don't want moved right now". By saying Yes, it's like you're saying, "Yes, I don't want this folder here anymore. I want it over there!"

EddieTripod said:

I didn't delete anything afterwards, but I know I can always just click "restore Libraries to default location" or something like that and they go right back to their original spots.

But these aren't Libraries. The only way to restore it that I know of is by doing it manually:

1. Go into the Properties of the new folder location
2. Switch to the Location tab
3. Change the location to the default folder location for Windows (C:\Users\Tripod)
4. Say Yes when it asks if you want to move all of the files unless you want to keep the old folder where it is for whatever reason!

I mean, it doesn't really matter where the location is, just as long as you change it this way so that Windows can make all o the changes needed inside of itself so that it always knows where it is in order for it to be able to tell programs where it is.

EddieTripod said:

Speaking of that, do you know if Macrium Reflect Free will want me to include my E drive on my system images, since those user folders are located there? If so, I may restore them to the defaults and just keep all my actual documents, pix etc in other folders on E.

Thanks,
Ed

I don't know. I've never used Macrium Reflect Free nor have I ever heard of it. The only thing I can recommend is seeing if you can find out while using the program if it is using C:\Users\Tripod for the user folders, or if it's using the set location of them regardless of what it is. You'll know it's using the set location if you can find out of it's using your set location somehow. I know that this isn't a very clear answer, but it's the best one I can give because it's how I would approach it. I mean, I would just find out by using the program or by seeing if it's able to show me what the actual location is on the hard drive that it's using for everything.

You don't want to delete the shell User folder which has the color icon added to it. Any blank folders by those names can be deleted after checking inside.