SP1 virtually renamed my shell folders(!?)

I'm running Win 7 64-bit, and just installed SP1 RTM. I had no prior version of SP1 installed, but I did have all the recommended Windows updates.

The problem is that as soon as Installed SP1, Win7 shows my "special" folders (Documents, Videos, Pictures, etc.) with the dreaded "My" prefix. I think I had done something to my system previously that made these display in Explorer without the "My", but I don't remember what. (I'm a very experienced computer user and programmer, but I failed to take notes on all changes when I was configuring and de-bloatwaring this new system about 2 months ago.)

Trying to rename the folders in Explorer fails; it says there's already a folder with that name. If I open a CMD window, dir shows me that the directories do indeed exist without the "My" prefix, even though Explorer insists on decorating the names.

How do I get Windows to stop being so "helpful"? This is driving me crazy. I've Googled this every way I can think of, done searches in regedit, etc., but I haven't stumbled across the solution.

Suggestions?

I think you will find that its displayed as My Documents but the actual folder name is Documents. If I browse to the location of my Documents folder in windows explorer, its displayed as "My Documents". If I right click and go to properties, under the Location tab it shows "D:\Documents". In my Library view it just says Documents. I don't see any easy way to change it, but I don't personally see the need to change it. I only see "MY Documents" when I browse to it manually by clicking my D: drive/partition.

Have you looked at this tutorial?

I can't begin to explain why this worked, but I fixed it. At least until Windows in its "wisdom" decides to undo my changes again.

All I did was rename the folders in Explorer -- exactly the same thing I had tried at least 4 different times in recent days, each one on a fresh reboot.

In all prior attempts I got the name collision diagnostic I mentioned in my original post upthread. This time, it worked.

In between I did not change anything on my system that should have remotely mattered. I didn't edit anything in the registry, didn't so much as run CrapCleaner. I've been using PCs since before they shipped (I worked at an IBM lab when the first one was developed), and Windows still manages to do things I've never seen before...

Thanks to everyone who tried to help solve this little mystery.

kado897 said:

alphanumeric said:

I think you will find that its displayed as My Documents but the actual folder name is Documents. If I browse to the location of my Documents folder in windows explorer, its displayed as "My Documents". If I right click and go to properties, under the Location tab it shows "D:\Documents". In my Library view it just says Documents. I don't see any easy way to change it, but I don't personally see the need to change it. I only see "MY Documents" when I browse to it manually by clicking my D: drive/partition.

The My.. folders are known as junction points. They are not real folders they are pointers to the real folders maintained by the NTFS file system. It looks like SP1 must have reset any changes you made.

I originally moved them from there default location to my D: partition. If I open windows explorer and browse to my D: partition they are shown as My Documents, My Music, etc. These are the actual folders that contain the files. After a clean install before changing the library locations they will display as Documents, Music, etc. Its only after I tie them to my user account that they display different names. Mine are moved so I guess its a different situation from what the OP is seeing. I'm just passing on what I have observed. Your mileage may vary. :)