My Documents folder inadvertently renamed

[jmbissell]

Either through my own fault or when importing my XP data into Win7 via the Windows 7 Easy Transfer Utility, I now have a C:\user\john\documents folder instead of a C:\user\john\My Documents folder (I still have the My Documents junction point). The "Documents" folder does not have a Location tab on its properties sheet and it will not allow a rename to "My Documents" which it says already exists. I have all my documents in this folder but things like Office that are looking for My Documents say that it is missing.
Also, the My Pictures, My Videos, and My Music links that were inside the My Documents folder are gone.
Is there any way to get the My Documents alias back on this folder and restore that to be pointing to Location C:\users\john\documents? I realize that I could probably just create a new user but then I'd have to move all of the AppData and other files which would be a pain.

 

[ickymay]

Either through my own fault or when importing my XP data into Win7 via the Windows 7 Easy Transfer Utility, I now have a C:\user\john\documents folder instead of a C:\user\john\My Documents folder (I still have the My Documents junction point). The "Documents" folder does not have a Location tab on its properties sheet and it will not allow a rename to "My Documents" which it says already exists. I have all my documents in this folder but things like Office that are looking for My Documents say that it is missing.
Also, the My Pictures, My Videos, and My Music links that were inside the My Documents folder are gone.
Is there any way to get the My Documents alias back on this folder and restore that to be pointing to Location C:\users\john\documents? I realize that I could probably just create a new user but then I'd have to move all of the AppData and other files which would be a pain.

wouldnt it be easier to redirect office and the other programs that need the path ?

 

[jmbissell]

I'd prefer to have things the way Windows 7 sets them up to maintain consistency across users and to make it easier to move files between computers.
Seems like this ought to be a trivial fix but I'm baffled.

 

[bigmck]

Either through my own fault or when importing my XP data into Win7 via the Windows 7 Easy Transfer Utility, I now have a C:\user\john\documents folder instead of a C:\user\john\My Documents folder (I still have the My Documents junction point). The "Documents" folder does not have a Location tab on its properties sheet and it will not allow a rename to "My Documents" which it says already exists. I have all my documents in this folder but things like Office that are looking for My Documents say that it is missing.
Also, the My Pictures, My Videos, and My Music links that were inside the My Documents folder are gone.
Is there any way to get the My Documents alias back on this folder and restore that to be pointing to Location C:\users\john\documents? I realize that I could probably just create a new user but then I'd have to move all of the AppData and other files which would be a pain.

Have you tried moving the folder to a different directory and adding a new My Documents? Hopefully this time it will allow you to use the name. You can then move your docs back to the folder.

 

[jmbissell]

I can rename the folder but when I try to create a new My Documents, it tells me that the folder already exists and do I want to merge it with the other one (which is actually the junction point My Documents). Even if I say Yes, nothing happens.
I'm wondering if I can first delete the My Documents junction point, rename Documents to My Documents, and then recreate the junction point.

 

[Brink]

Hello John, and welcome to Seven Forums.

This should help:

• Backup anything that you do not want to lose in the folder.
• Delete it and any other instance of the "My Documents" folder.
• Restore the default location of the "My Documents" folder.
• Restart the computer. You may need to restart a few times before "My Documents" is restored.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[jmbissell]

Hello John, and welcome to Seven Forums.

This should help:

• Backup anything that you do not want to lose in the folder.
• Delete it and any other instance of the "My Documents" folder.
• Restore the default location of the "My Documents" folder.
• Restart the computer. You may need to restart a few times before "My Documents" is restored.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

I must be missing something here. After I delete the My Documents folder it doesn't show up in the list of things I can restore to their default locations. I finally got so frustrated w/ this that I saved off the information, deleted the account, and added the user back as a new account. Caused a lot of (re)setup of things that had already been working but them's the breaks. Thanks for your help!

 

[Brink]

I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted, but sorry you had to create a new account to do it.

 

[logicearth]

The "My " portion in front of Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos are not actually part of the real folder name. You can actually rename this folders to anything you want. It is only a visual thing for Windows Explorer.

 

[jmbissell]

The one thing you can't seem to do is to rename it back to My Documents. And some of my legacy apps (like Office XP/2002) seemed to fail when I would click on the My Documents button.

 

[logicearth]

The one thing you can't seem to do is to rename it back to My Documents. And some of my legacy apps (like Office XP/2002) seemed to fail when I would click on the My Documents button.

That is because the directory is no longer set as your Documents folder.

 

[swarfega]

Probably what I would have tried would be to make a new folder called "my documents" then go to c:\<account>, right click on the documents folder and click properties. Go to location tab. Click move and then navigate to the my documents folder you created and click ok. That would move the contents officially to the recreated my documents folder.