User Folders - Restore Default Location

How to Restore Default Location of User Folders in Windows 7 and Windows 8​

   Information

This will show you how to restore the default location of all or a single user folder of your choice in Windows 7 and Windows 8.

   Note

If you have duplicate user folders instead, then you will need to backup the contents of the duplicate user folders, do OPTION TWO below, delete the duplicate folders, then you may need to restart the computer a couple of times first before the default location is restored.

Windows 8.1 Update released on April 8th 2014 via Windows Update, renamed SkyDrive to OneDrive.

CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Restore Default Location of User Folders in Properties
• Option Two: To Restore Default Location of User Folders using a BAT file

EXAMPLE: User folders
NOTE: This is at the default C:\Users\(user-name) location.

OPTION ONE

To Restore Default Location of User Folders in Properties

NOTE: If using this option does not restore the user folder back to the default location, then use OPTION TWO below instead.
1. If you are in a homegroup, then you will need to change the homegroup settings to no longer share the user folder (ex: My Music) that you want to move first by unchecking the folder and clicking on Save Changes. (see screenshot below)
NOTE: This is so the user folder (ex: My Music) will not be shared on the homegroup anymore.

2. Press the Windows+R keys to open the Run dialog, type shell:UsersFilesFolder, and press enter.
NOTE: This will open your C:\Users\(user-name) folder.

3. Right click or press and hold on the user folder (ex: My Music) that you want to restore the default location for, and click/tap on Properties.

4. Click/tap on the Location tab, and Restore Default button. (See screenshot below)

5. Click/tap on OK. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: Notice that the location has changed to the default C:\Users\(user-name) location.

6. Click/tap on Yes. (See screenshot below)

   Note

If you have a folder in the default location named for the user folder already, then you will not see this dialog box.

Windows 8 will not have the "My" in front of the user folder name anymore.

User Folder | Folder Name Contacts |Contacts
Desktop |Desktop
My Documents |Documents
Downloads |Downloads
Favorites |Favorites
Links |Links
My Music |Music
My Pictures |Pictures
OneDrive (Windows 8.1 Update)|OneDrive
Saved Games |Saved Games
Searches |Searches
SkyDrive (Windows 8.1)|SkyDrive
My Videos |Videos

7. Click/tap on Yes. (See screenshot below)
WARNING: If you do not click/tap on Yes, then you will have two copies of this user folder at the C:\Users\(user-name) location. One will be a normal folder (same name) with the contents and the other as the now restored user folder. It is recommended that you click/tap on YES.

8. After a few seconds when the location has been restored, the Properties window (screenshot under step 5) will then close.

9. If you are in a homegroup, then you can now change the homegroup settings back to share the user folder (ex: My Music) again if you like by checking the folder and clicking on Save Changes. (see screenshot below)

OPTION TWO

To Restore Default Location of User Folders using a BAT file

   Note

This is an example of the contents of the .bat files below. The parts in red are what will vary per .bat file based on what user folder it is for.

@echo off 
 
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
 
timeout /t 2 /nobreak >nul
 
if not exist "%UserProfile%\[B][COLOR=red]Pictures[/COLOR][/B]" mkdir "%UserProfile%\[COLOR=red][B]Pictures[/B][/COLOR]"
 
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v "[COLOR=red][B]My Pictures[/B][/COLOR]" /t REG_SZ /d "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\[COLOR=red][B]Pictures[/B][/COLOR]" /f
 
reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v "[COLOR=red][B]My Pictures[/B][/COLOR]" /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d %%USERPROFILE%%"\[COLOR=red][B]Pictures[/B][/COLOR]" /f
 
attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\[COLOR=red][B]Pictures[/B][/COLOR]" /S /D
 
timeout /t 1 /nobreak >nul
 
start explorer.exe

1. Do step 2 to 13 below for what user folder you need to restore the default location of.


2. To Restore the Default Contacts Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Contacts_Default_Location.bat


Download


3. To Restore the Default Desktop Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Desktop_Default_Location.bat


Download


4. To Restore the Default My Documents Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Documents_Default_Location.bat


Download


5. To Restore the Default Downloads Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Downloads_Default_Location.bat


Download


6. To Restore the Default Favorites Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Favorites_Default_Location.bat


Download


7. To Restore the Default Links Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Links_Default_Location.bat


Download


8. To Restore the Default My Music Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Music_Default_Location.bat


Download


9. To Restore Default OneDrive Folder Location in Windows 8.1 Update
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_OneDrive_Default_Location.bat


Download


10. To Restore the Default My Pictures Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Pictures_Default_Location.bat


Download


11. To Restore the Default Saved Games Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Saved_Games_Default_Location.bat


Download


12. To Restore the Default Searches Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Searches_Default_Location.bat


Download


13. To Restore the Default My Videos Folder Location
A) Click/tap on the download button below to download the file below, and go to step 14 below.

Restore_Videos_Default_Location.bat


Download


14. Save the .bat file to your Desktop.

15. Unblock the downloaded .bat file(s).

16. Double click/tap on the downloaded .bat file to run it.

17. The .bat file will now kill explorer causing your screen to go blank, then open a command prompt to quickly restore the default location of the folder in the registry, restore the default attributes of the folder, restart explorer, and close the command prompt.

18. Repeat step 1 above for any other user folder you need to restore the default location of.

19. When finished, check the user folder(s) to verify that they have been restored to their default location.

20. If the user folder(s) still have not been restored to their default locations, then restart the computer and check again.

21. When restored, copy your files from the old folder location back into your now restored default folder location in "C:\Users\(user-name)".



That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Change the Default Location of User Folders in Windows 7 and Windows 8
• How to Customize Default User Profile in Audit Mode
• How to Change the Default "Screenshots" Folder Location in Windows 8
• How to Change the Windows 7 Default User Folder Icons
• How to Pin Your User Files Folder to the Windows 7 Taskbar
• How to Create Your Own Special User Folder
• How to Restore Windows 7 Default User Folder Icons
• How to Add or Remove your User Folder from the Windows 7 Navigation Pane
• How to Restore the Windows 7 Public Folders
• How to Allow or Prevent Users to Move their User Folders to a New Location
• How to Change the Default Location of a User Profile in Windows 7 and Vista
• How to Create User Accounts on another Partition or Disk During Windows 7 Installation
• How to Change the Name of "My Documents" without Renaming the Folder
• How to Change the User Folder Name of a User Profile in Windows 7
• How to Restore Default Junction Points in Windows

 

[JimWin7]

Lost Location Tabs

I'm missing a Location tab in Properties for the My Documents, My Music and My Pictures folders. The My Videos folder does have a Location tab. Therefore I used Option 2, copied the problem folders to "C:\Jim Copy" and deleted the folders in "C:\Users\Jim". I then did steps 3, 7, and 12 through 20. In step 20 I didn't have to do anything because the default paths were already there. I then did step 23 for Documents, Music and Pictures. When I did step 25, the shell:My Music and shell:My Pictures went to a dead end. I tried shell:My Videos and it took me to the My Videos folder as it should. When I did step 25 for shellersonal search it took me to a Documents folder instead of My Documents. This Documents folder does have a Location tab. I tried renaming Documents to My Documents but then the folder didn't have a Location tab so I changed it back to Documents. Below are the Users Jim folders before trying to correct it and the Regedit Shell list.
What am I doing wrong?

 

[Brink]

Hello Jim,

Have you already restarted the computer a few times? Sometimes it may take a bit and a few restarts for the default folder to return.

 

[JimWin7]

Hi Brink,
I restarted several times but no change.

 

[Brink]

Ok. Time for plan B.

If you like, you can create a new administrator account, then copy all of the contents of the old user account's C:\Users\(user-name) folders (including hidden AppData folder) into the corresponding new account's C:\Users\(user-name) folder. After everything checks out ok, you can delete the old user account while logged in the new user account.

 

[JimWin7]

Success

Hurray, It worked. I now have Location tabs. Now I have to clean up Windows Virtual XP. I looks like I'll have to install the programs again in the one that's attached to the new User.

 

[Brink]

That's great news Jim.

 

[JimWin7]

Plan B Care

I did discover after some house cleaning and careful examination that the new My Pictures folder was missing the Location tab. I did plan B over and discovered that it's important to only copy the CONTENTS of the old user folders and NOT the folders themselves. Copying folders without a Location tab seems to make another folder without a Location tab but a copy of just the contents avoids the problem.

Thank you Brink, I learned a lot with your help.

 

[Brink]

I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted Jim. Thank you for posting back with your results.

 

[hallycat]

I just want to thank you. Now I will tell you why

I was running Windows 7 on an older machine and it wasn't very stable, so I got a nice fast new box. I'd been waiting for SSD's to come down in price but couldn't wait any longer so got a 64 GB one thinking I would put My Documents, Music, Pics and most of the programs on the terabyte SATA I took out of the old box. Only I ended up losing My Music folder. Here's how:

I made a folder called Barbara on the E drive (that's the user name on the C drive) and moved the My Documents folder to it. That went fine. Then I moved the My Music folder to the Barbara folder. And *poof* I couldn't see it anymore. Mind you this folder was empty, I had yet to copy my backup to it. And also note that yes, I have a good backup, actually two. One on an external drive and one online. Note to people reading this, there are two kinds of users, those who have lost data and those who will lose data.


So I followed your instructions in this tutorial to restore it. Rebooted several times and it still didn't show. I'm thinking to myself I could see having to reboot but your statement that sometimes it takes a few reboots for fix didn't really hit me as something that would work. I had to leave for the day so I shut down. Note that walking away from a frustrating problem is often a good idea. So once away I thought to myself, if I don't find a way to fix it I will just create a new profile and ditch this one. The machine was all of a day old and hardly had anything installed that couldn't be easily moved to a different user. No big deal and lesson learned.
While looking for a fix I found someone who did the exact same thing, (naming the folder the same as the user name on c:\user) the answer he was given was not what I was looking for however so apparently it's NOT a good idea to do what I did heh.

Anyway, I get home last night and turn on machine and lo and behold there is the My Music folder back in my user folder on the C drive. I was quite amazed.
I was able to move the My Documents back where it started using location/restore default and the Barbara folder was not showing on E which was weird so I formatted the drive which was empty anyway and started over.

I've now moved everything over the proper way and all is fine.

 

[Brink]

Hello Halleycat, and welcome to Seven Forums.

I'm happy to hear that you got everything sorted. Thank you for posting back with your findings.

 

[gregrocker]

These repair steps are really valuable for repairing Location tab when it disappears. But you have to get the regedit listings verbatim according to the excellent charts.

Is it likely Users are botching these in the first place by dragging User folders onto the separate data HD or partition rather than following the correct steps to change User folder location via Location tab?

 

[Brink]

Hello Greg.

Thank you. Yeah it can be real easy to mess up with the slightest deviation from the steps.

 

[Raigon]

You da man!! Brilliant work

 

[edwardholmes91]

Thank you so much!

I don't know how I managed to do it but I was changing the location of the Pictures folder and backing a few things up etc. and I managed to delete my Pictures folder. I tried everything I could and couldn't get it to work.

Followed option 2 of this tutorial all the way through and after a restart my pictures folder is back and works perfectly!

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Edward. I glad to hear that you got it back.

 

[funkyu]

thank you very much this was an awesome tute!

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Funkyu, and welcome to Seven Forums.

 

[bowmma]

Many thanks, Shawn. I was completely baffled with the duplicate folders. Have now returned "My Documents" to my system and will never try to redirect the folder again. You are a life saver.

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Bowmma, and welcome to Seven Forums. I happy to hear that you got it sorted out.

 

[kevvyb]

Triuble with the command prompt

Hi I have got to the copy and paste part into elevated command prompt and I am tearing my hair out. Keep getting a Parameter format not correct. Have changed the userprofile to mine.

Any ideas what I may be doing wrong?