Windows 7 - libraries and the command line

I am a long time programmer and computer science professor, since 1979.
I grew up with the command line and like it just fine.
But Windows 7 seems to change the GUI way of doing things and not mess with the command line.

Yesterday I was at the command prompt and went to C:\users\Stockwell
and then did a "dir". I saw several directories, but there was no "My Documents" listed. I did
cd "My Documents"
and it worked!
Then I copied over several .xls files from a USB key. I did a dir to see them.
It showed nothing!
Then I ran Excel 2003 (I can't stand Office '07!) to open them -- and they all showed up in My Documents and I opened them.
What the hell gives here?

Did you create another folder called 'My Documents' ? If you did, I would think it would be listed under Documents. (click the arrow next to Documents)

I created a 'My Pictures' folder

Command line reference A-Z List

No, I did not create any new directory there.

But it looks like the Documents dir is linked to "My Documents".

I find this totally uncalled for, and causing unneeded confusion.

"My Documents" what you see in Explorer is a localized name for "Documents" as it is in the file system. When you did a "dir" of your user directory, there was a "Documents" folder correct? That is what you want. Now there is a "My Documents" folder that exists in your user directory, however, it is merely a junction that points to "Documents". So anything you put there will go to "Documents" but you cannot get a directory listing from it. That is why "dir" did not show anything, Excel did because it was looking in the real location.

+1

This type of system behavior is bothersome to me. Sometimes I would rather just stay in Linux where things are understandable (and standard!).

Speaking of that -- does Windows 7 Pro offer virtualization? Or is that only available in their Ultimate version?

You mean virualization as in Windows Virtual PC that will run on all versions? Yes.
Download details: Windows Virtual PC

Why don't you stay with Linux then if you cannot understand Windows?

My point is that I do not understand the need for aliases for directories; seems unnecessary and a source of confusion.

I was writing programs, including language compilers, LONG before there WAS a "windows". Back then you had to write programs, you could not buy them. So I wrote a terminal program to allow logging on to remote systems (this was in 1980), and thousands of other programs (many compiled by the compiler I wrote). So, it is disingenuous to insinuate that I "don't understand Windows".

Thanks for the link on the virtual PC.

I understand and agree that this is confusing, however it is done to keep compatibly with older software, so every program out there does not have to be completely re-written just to use Windows 7.

I don't think anyone really understands Windows even the programmers. There are just too many lines of code now-a-days. I continually find new things in software that is 10 years old; example is working with an old Exchange 2000 email system. I was asked about doing some fancy email stuff like you can in Exchange 2010 and I told them you cannot do it in Exchange 2000, when it was designed no-one thought about doing that. Well after some googling and looking around at the Exchange 2000 system there was a way to do what they wanted, it was just burred and really unknown. I called a few of my Exchange Experts (all they do is Exchange) and they never knew about it either. - Just my two cents.