File location dialog only shows userprofile directory

Paladin · 21 Jul 2015

I have a recurring problem where some applications, including many installers, give me a file selection dialog which does not have any way to get to the root of my computer, or select a location outside my userprofile directory whatsoever.

I've managed to find a workaround, by putting symlinks (Not shortcuts) to the root directories of my 4 drives (C, D, E, and F) into my user profile directory, but the problem with that is that it means that the applications may consider themselves to be installed in C:\Users\Paladin\F\installdirectory instead of F:\installdirectory.

It's not a huge issue if the dialog at least has a location field I can just type in the directory I want it installed to (Though of course that means I have to create the directory through Explorer first), but in some cases (Such as the VMWare Workstation 11 installer which is what I took the screenshot of) they don't provide that so I'm stuck with either installing into my userprofile directory (Which is a problem as my C drive has limited space), or using my symlink hack.

Anyone else ever run into this?

Paladin · 21 Jul 2015

Found a better workaround, using an old trick I used to use way back in the day to gain control of win95/98 computers that had the system locked down and the control panel hidden... Looked up the GUID for the My Computer shell folder, and made a new folder in my user home called "Computer.{20d04fe0-3aea-1069-a2d8-08002b30309d}"

Can now properly access everything in my computer through that, and the installer is given the correct directory path. Still a bit of an annoyance though, so if anyone knows how to get these dialogs to just show the full computer as they should, I'd quite like to know.