Want Folders Not Libraries

First let me clarify that I don't use W7 much - I'm still on XP. I do support several people that use W7, so I have a virtual machine with W7 in it.

modifier said:

Here is a screenshot of what I first see in Explore. ~~~ This just shows that I don't have a "documents" folder available.......

There is definitely something different about your explorer window. If you follow kegobeer's link, you can probably get the documents shortcut back under Libraries - once you have done that, the file > save as dialog issue will be cured as well.

modifier said:

......It was only when I created the recipe document in Open Office then tried to save and create a new folder in process......

Thanks for the additional info - I was not sure how to help you since I was not sure what editor you used... I should have just asked.

modifier said:

.....How about someone recreate what I did and see if you have the same hang ups. I very well may simply be missing something. I don't purport to be a geek......

Now here's the thing:
I installed Open Office into my W7 VM
opened Writer
typed "test" in as some text
did a file > save as
The "save as" dialog box looks just like the one that I posted earlier. The "Libraries\documents" folder was already selected in the save as window - so I made a new folder via right click > new > folder (then I deleted that new folder) and made another new folder via the new folder button and I put the test document in that new folder - then exited OO Writer.

I opened up explorer to see if the test folder and test file was were it was supposed to be... but I noticed a new temp folder being created in the root of C. [The type of temp file that OS patches sometimes create with lots of letters and numbers in the folder name. I figured that it was OO updating itself because OS updates are turned off. The temp file soon went away.] I mention this OO update thing because the test folder/file that I saved was nowhere to be found via explorer.

So.... I opened OO's Writer app again and did a File > save as --- only to be told that folder that I was attempting to access was no longer available. This tells me that OO took note of the most recent folder used for the save as dialog and it tried to open that for me during the second save as operation, So I was not the only entity that thought the recently created folder and test file should still be on the hard drive.




A glance at Writer's recent documents confirms the location of the file that OO & I did not find:




...and via explorer





RANT
Dear MS,
I have enough trouble explaining to people where files really are on their hard drive without you calling the real "Documents" folder by an alias of "My Documents". Not all applications call your APIs - some apps use their own file access dialog boxes... thus people need to know the real path to their files.
/RANT
There; I feel better now.

modifier said:

.....Do I need to start another thread to ask about the additional questions I have posed or do people simply not know the answers?.....

No, we just were not clear that the explorer issue and the save as issue are related. Once you fix explorer, the save as will be fixed - we hope.

modifier said:

.....Also look at my screen shot and see how it opened up with all the space to the right and everything jumbled to the left. This is how it looks every time I open any folder the first time before I drag it open to view more stuff at once....

Turn off the preview pane. You can use the menus shown on the left or toggle that pane via the icon highlighted on the upper right.



I'm going to go ahead and hit "Submit Reply" for this post before the attached images disappear again. There appears to be a time out on that when a post stays in the edit mode too long. If I get the time, I'll start over on the OO install and see if the test file goes away again.

You might also like to remove "Libraries" from the shell context menu like so. Save to a removelib.reg file or whatever then run it.

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{2112AB0A-C86A-4ffe-A368-0DE96E47012E}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{491E922F-5643-4af4-A7EB-4E7A138D8174}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{7b0db17d-9cd2-4a93-9733-46cc89022e7c}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{A302545D-DEFF-464b-ABE8-61C8648D939B}]
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{A990AE9F-A03B-4e80-94BC-9912D7504104}]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel]
“{031E4825-7B94-4dc3-B131-E946B44C8DD5}”=-

UsernameIssues said:

modifier said:

.....Do I need to start another thread to ask about the additional questions I have posed or do people simply not know the answers?.....

No, we just were not clear that the explorer issue and the save as issue are related. Once you fix explorer, the save as will be fixed - we hope.

modifier said:

.....Also look at my screen shot and see how it opened up with all the space to the right and everything jumbled to the left. This is how it looks every time I open any folder the first time before I drag it open to view more stuff at once....

Turn off the preview pane. You can use the menus shown on the left or toggle that pane via the icon highlighted on the upper right.


.

Thanks for the thoughtful post. I haven't digested all you said about saving a doc but the issue I was having with Explore opening up with a minimal view was easily fixed by simply clicking on the Preview Pane icon on the upper right. I opened and closed Explore several times and it seems to have stuck. So that was easy.

For the moment I'm going to work around having Libraries. I'll see if I want to spend the time to understand how to eliminate them later. One thing I'm concerned about it if I eliminate them will I loose what is in them since I have folders within libraries? Or do they not really work that way?

Now the one other issue that no one has touched on yet is my erratic mouse behavior when scrolling pics. Like I said before if I'm trying to scroll up or down through a bunch of pics and click on the space between the bar and the arrow more than a few times or I hold down on the arrow for too many seconds it goes into rapid scroll mode that is too fast to see. It makes it almost impossible to find a pic if there are a lot in a folder. The only way around it I have found it to hold left button and drag the bar, but this is even hard to do if there are a lot of pics because you can't move it a small enough distance.

I haven't enabled any preference that I have aware of that is supposed to speed things up or accelerate. The only automation I have enabled on my laptop is pinch to zoom, but this happens on my desk top too. Another symptom is when it goes into this rapid mode if I take the cursor away from the scroll bar it stops then starts up again if I move it back to it without hitting any mouse buttons. If I left click away from the scroll bar it stops then the process repeats if I try and scroll again. I hope that isn't too confusing.

When I reinstalled OO for a second time, I could not get it to update - it seems that the servers were down. So I did not repeat my experiment to see if the folder/file would be deleted during an update.

Glad to hear that you got your folders looking like you want them, for now.

I'll have to let others talk to the usefulness of the Libraries. As far as losing the stuff that is in them if you remove them from view: my one small test was to put pictures into the "users\username\my pictures" folder and then merged the reg file that pcunite posted. The pics are there - Libraries are not

As far as your mouse and the wild scrolling - I don't use a mouse with my laptop, so I've not seen such behavior. Maybe a fresh thread in this Sevens Forum might help you.

UsernameIssues said:

I'll have to let others talk to the usefulness of the Libraries. As far as losing the stuff that is in them if you remove them from view: my one small test was to put pictures into the "users\username\my pictures" folder and then merged the reg file that pcunite posted. The pics are there - Libraries are not

Yeah that may work. I did have a Library called Bicycles and a folder in it that was called Components. The Components folder had only pics I had saved to that folder but the Library had every picture I had saved to either the folder or the Library. I created another folder called Bicycles and moved all the bicycle pics into it but they didn't really move they just copied. But then I deleted one of the pics in the Library to see if it would go away or stay in the folder. It went away. I still don't get the purpose of Libraries. They seem redundant. I hope they don't double the space used on the hard drive. But I think I read somewhere that they do not. I find that you can do almost everything in 7 that you could in XP and perhaps some additional stuff. It just seems harder to figure out how to do it. I wonder if 8 will be an improvement.

Here's a way to disable Libraries if that's what you still want: How to Disable “Libraries” Feature in Windows 7? - Tweaking with Vishal

I strongly recommend you to at least make a restore point first or preferably take a System Image.

I tried Libraries for about 2 weeks after getting my laptop and never found any need for them, so used this link and I've never
missed them. There is a restore in the Zip file if you change your mind.