Documents or My Documents

[helpful55]

I was working to trim down the files on my hd as I need to help with my backup system. I see I have things like My Documents which is almost a duplicate of the Documents folder which is the one I set as the path. I always set it up that way as I see no reason to have an extra word on the folder name. (A sidelight is problems I have been having setting up network file sharing which I didn’t used to have and I wonder if my working with that is why perhaps windows set up this duplicate folder because I am not sure I did it.) I get a warning to not delete the My Documents folder as it is shared. Is windows set up to where I need to be using the My Documents name instead of just Documents so I can share them and then delete the duplicate documents version? (By deleting the current My Documents, older version, and renaming the Documents folder to My Documents). If so I guess I had better just use the extra word so it all works. Thanks for any info.

 

[Brds7t7]

I always remove the "My" from My Docs, My Music, etc and occasionally Windows sets it back to My Docs, My Music, etc. I'm not sure what events actually trigger this. It's still the same folder though, so don't delete any of your stuff.

What I do is have the "My Documents" Folder for some program settings (some programs set this as the default directory), and also have a "Personal Documents" folder on my D (Data) drive, where I store actual documents. I add both folders to the same "Documents" library though.

 

[Alejandro85]

This is a typical confussion that arises from the default profile on Win7, and how different is from previous Windows versions.

The normal "my documents" folder that many programs use to store user data is normally called "Documents", and is unaffected by system language. Windows Explorer may display something localized due to the presence of the hidden "desktop.ini" file that changes the displayed name. Most other file managers (including the rudimentary built-in cmd) show the real name instead.

Together with this (also in the main profile folder) there is a junction point that just links to the previous documents folder, called with a localized name like in previous Windows versions, often "My Documents" in an English Windows. Since it's a junction, its normal and expected to see the very same things that the real folder has.

The junction is there merely as a backward compatibility feature with broken programs that expect localized names for the documents folders (and a couple of others too), and can be safely deleted if you have no such program installed. The Documents folder is the real data and is what you must backup.

 

[RoWin7]

I always move my documents (small m, small d) to partition D, so all my data will be together for backup. I just ignore whatever Win calls theirs on the C drive.

 

[Snick]

Agree with Alejandro85!

Here's a Sevenforums thread!
Confused Between The Difference - "My Documents & ...
From Tenforums
documents vs mydocuments and publicdocuments What ...
Bree's post#6 provided a lengthy explanation.
Including linked explanation by Microsoft's Mark Russinovich > https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...loads/junction

 

[RoWin7]

The explanations are confusing. The Documents folder on C is identical to the MyDocuments I created on partition D. A change in one is reflected in the other. Is that normal?