User Folder - Create Your Own Special Folders

How to Create Your Own Special User Folder​

I am dutch but for this tutorial I set my mui to English to make it easier on you.

Here I have a folder called "Installatie" (that's dutch for Installation)

I want to make a special folder in my username (in this case Michel on the left pane), that I will call "Installatie" also, for easy reference.



Here's How:
1. Open an elevated command prompt.
By default it will open in C:\Windows\System32 even if you are on x64 windows.
2. Type cd\users\username (in my case username is Michel)
The prompt will now show "c:\users\username>

We will now use the "MKLINK" command.
3. Type mklink /d Installatie d:\Installatie and press enter.
Explanation:
mklink /d is the command means, link to folder

where I typed Installatie, you have to type the name you want to give to your special folder.

where I typed d:\Installatie, you have to type the location of the folder you want to point to.

If you did it right, you should get an output saying:
symbolic link created for Installatie <<===>> d:\installatie

See the screenshot.


Now in the explorer you will see the following.


I gave the folder another icon, through the properties-> customize->change icon.
Warning!! for chosing a icon don't use shell32.dll because the icons will show up to small in the right pane, browse to \windows\system32\imageres.dll instead and chose an icon from there.

You might also notice that your folder has an shortcut arrow and mine doesn't.

For getting rid of the shortcut arrows, you can go to this great tutorial of our esteemed colleague "Brink":
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3606-shortcut-arrow-change-remove-restore.html
Good luck.

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Restore Windows 7 Default User Folder Icons
• How to Change the Windows 7 Default User Folder Icons
• How to Pin Your User Files Folder to the Windows 7 Taskbar
• How to Restore the Default Location of Windows 7 User Folders
• How to Change the Default Location of Windows 7 User Folders
• How to Add or Remove your User Folder from the Windows 7 Navigation Pane
• How to Change the Default Location of a User Profile in Windows 7 and Vista
• How to Customize Default User Profile in Audit Mode

 

[pacinitaly]

folder created, can't access it

I tried this on my vista 32bit laptop.
sorry, it does not work.
It created the folder, I choose the icon from the .dll, then I tried to open it and got the attached error

 

[mickey megabyte]

it's a tutorial for window 7

 

[SquonkSC]

I tried this on my vista 32bit laptop.
sorry, it does not work.
It created the folder, I choose the icon from the .dll, then I tried to open it and got the attached error

Should work for Vista also.


The screenshot's error message tells you what's wrong.

Your link is pointing to a location that does not exist, or the location is not accessible. (user rights)

But for now, I assume you mistyped the location, or made a mistake in the mklink syntax.

Just read the tutorial thoroughly and try it again, and pay attention to spaces and other details.

Good luck

edit: Make sure you use your own location names, not the ones I typed.
they serve merely as example.

 

[pacinitaly]

forget it...

thanks anyway, it just won't work. I took ownership of my profile folder too.
It's cool, I can create a folder in the links folder as I've done B4

the folder is there, I'm able to change icon but can't open it. everytime I click the folder, I get this:


C:\Users\carmine\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review\2review

 

[SquonkSC]

forget it...

thanks anyway, it just won't work. I took ownership of my profile folder too.
It's cool, I can create a folder in the links folder as I've done B4

Good,

That "links folder" makes the mklink kind of obsolete anyway.


note:
the mklink dates back to win2000 and works on xp, vista and win7.

Don't know why it won't work for you, but Iam sure it has something to do with your security settings.

But I'm glad you found a (better) alternative.

greetz

 

[pacinitaly]

thank you, stay well

 

[lucazav]

Where is the "Location" tab?

Hi,

I create my special folder as you explain on Windows 7. It works great! But when I right-click on this new folder, I can't see the "Location" tab... Is there something I miss?
Thank you.

 

[smiths22]

Thanks for your tutorial SquonkSC.

 

[jberghem]

Bogus Tutorial

This is not creating a "special folder" :sa:

This is simply the old DOS way of making a shortcut.

cd\users\username = change directory to \users\username the same as just hitting the "username" link in your start menu.
mklink /d Installatie d:\Installatie = make a link (synonym to shortcut) to the directory d:\Installatie and call it Installatie and this is just the same command the windows GUI sends when you right click in the folder than go to new -> shortcut.

That is also why you get the shortcut arrow. Sorry no special folder at all!!

Please do not write tutorials if you're not really sure of what you're doing! :sarc:

Is there no moderator in this forum that checks these tutorials?

BTW: if you want a "special folder" (which is actually just a regular folder in your user directory) and have it appear in the favorites list in the left panel, just create a folder, name it and drag and drop it to the favorites list.

 

[tholley]

So just what is the purpose of having a "special folder" anyway?

 

[Miranova23]

This is not creating a "special folder" :sa:

This is simply the old DOS way of making a shortcut.

cd\users\username = change directory to \users\username the same as just hitting the "username" link in your start menu.
mklink /d Installatie d:\Installatie = make a link (synonym to shortcut) to the directory d:\Installatie and call it Installatie and this is just the same command the windows GUI sends when you right click in the folder than go to new -> shortcut.

That is also why you get the shortcut arrow. Sorry no special folder at all!!

Please do not write tutorials if you're not really sure of what you're doing! :sarc:

Is there no moderator in this forum that checks these tutorials?

BTW: if you want a "special folder" (which is actually just a regular folder in your user directory) and have it appear in the favorites list in the left panel, just create a folder, name it and drag and drop it to the favorites list.

This is the difference.

A symlink will appear in the Navigation Pane and can open it's hierarchy tree from there. A shortcut will not.

(And the favorites list has many enemies. )

 

[jonnyhotchkiss]

BUG with naming folders like 'GODMODE.{clsid}'?

I've been trying to add use frequent-specialFolders (like recent), using the 'new folder' - name.{CLSID} trick

a documented feature of the shell whereby filesystem folders can be easily made into namespace junctions, as described here on MSDN. Basically, any folder named <DisplayName>.<CLSID> will show up with just the <DisplayName> portion visible in Explorer, and navigating into the folder will take you to the namespace root defined by the <CLSID> portion of the name. This isn’t a user feature, it’s a developer feature.

Mine isn't working! I get the long name, with the .{CLSID} suffix...

Is anyone else having this problem?
Any ideas?

UPDATE - appears to have resolved. All I did was boot into Windows (Clean), noticed no issue, changed some folder type settings (show protected, don't hide known filetypes...), nothing caused the .{CLSID} folder suffix to be visible.

Created a new user admin account TEST, logged in, no issues... rebooted, logged into my own userprofile... problem resolved : )

Got one more build to try this on, might shootTheReg, see if any noticeable changes are made in ~HKCU

 

[Brink]

Hello Jonny,

A "Control Panel All Tasks List" (aka: Godmode) shortcut is unrelated to this tutorial, but the tutorial below should help instead.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/44340-control-panel-all-tasks-list-shortcut.html

 

[jonnyhotchkiss]

nope. just purged a diffdisk, and my fix^^ ain't working.

looks like I'm stuck with it

That's on a new user account, which makes me think it's a LocalMachine-scope thing...

Red herring

 

[jonnyhotchkiss]

Folder in User Folder?

Hi, do you know what controls which folders are seen in the UserFolder?!

The userfolder is on the explorer nav. pane, and can be added to the start menu panel.

I've moved Quick Launch and Favorites to my userfolder, neither is visible via my userfolder (Shell Object).

If I go via environment variables (ie a path, %userprofile%\ ) the dir's are seen.

Thinking it might be only junctions are shown, I checked (dir /a)

All I see are

Downloads
My Documents
Links (ie win7 'Quick Access')
Searches

Is this just me?

Even with show system files I can't see relocated Quick Launch - even though the path resolves, the hard coded env string path takes precedent

 

[jonnyhotchkiss]

I've changed AppData (folder only, of course) to not be hidden.

Re Quick Launch, guessing Parsing Name 'dunnit. testing with favorites

 

[jonnyhotchkiss]

solved

Added Parent, Relative,& ParsingName, also to wow64 @
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\FolderDescriptions\{1777F761-68AD-4D8A-87BD-30B759FA33DD}

REG_SZ (Default) (value not set)
REG_DWORD Attributes 0x00000001 (1)
REG_DWORD Category 0x00000004 (4)
REG_EXPAND_SZ Icon %SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-115
REG_EXPAND_SZ LocalizedName @%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21796
REG_SZ Name Favorites
REG_SZ ParsingName ::{59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}\{1777F761-68AD-4D8A-87BD-30B759FA33DD}
REG_DWORD PreCreate 0x00000001 (1)
REG_DWORD PublishExpandedPath 0x00000001 (1)
REG_SZ RelativePath Favorites
REG_DWORD Roamable 0x00000001 (1)

It's the little things