I have 4 computers all running W7 Home Premium, all set up identically. One has recently lost track of My Documents in the Windows Explorer Library and doesn't offer a solution to restoring it.
The actual content of My Documents is on a DNS-323 network drive. In years of experience, nothing like this has been a problem, so nothing to see there.
The Library shows Documents with the "expansion arrow". If I try to expand that, the arrow goes away but nothing happens. If I click on Documents, I get the messages "Documents is Empty" "No folders have been include in the library". If I click on the Include a folder button, navigate to the folder on the network drive and try to add it, I get a message "This network location can't be included because it is not indexed". The other three computers are pretty sure it is, or at least that it doesn't matter.
I have searched through the Registry for a clue, but there are so many references to My Documents that I have no idea what to look for there.
I would appreciate any ideas other than reloading Windows. Is there a way to just reload Windows Explorer, or perhaps copy it from another of the working computers? (I suspect it is a Registry problem, so a simple copy is probably off the table.)
Some additional notes:
System Restore is not promising since I have no idea when it may have occurred and only two "critical updates". are listed as restore points for some reason. I know there have been others since I created several myself. But the space allocated for restore points is only at 2.5gB out of 10gB allocated so I don't understand that unless a Windows update deleted all previous restore points. Besides that, I am sure I have been chasing a solution since before the dates on those.
To make it worse, this is the computer my wife uses. She is an experienced user, but not a "computer-type". It is always possible that she did something to cause the problem, but I expect it is the result of a glitch of some sort, not a keyboard error. I want My Documents to appear as a library so she doesn't have to expand the view of the network drive with the risk that she might move or delete something there by accident.
The actual content of My Documents is on a DNS-323 network drive. In years of experience, nothing like this has been a problem, so nothing to see there.
The Library shows Documents with the "expansion arrow". If I try to expand that, the arrow goes away but nothing happens. If I click on Documents, I get the messages "Documents is Empty" "No folders have been include in the library". If I click on the Include a folder button, navigate to the folder on the network drive and try to add it, I get a message "This network location can't be included because it is not indexed". The other three computers are pretty sure it is, or at least that it doesn't matter.
I have searched through the Registry for a clue, but there are so many references to My Documents that I have no idea what to look for there.
I would appreciate any ideas other than reloading Windows. Is there a way to just reload Windows Explorer, or perhaps copy it from another of the working computers? (I suspect it is a Registry problem, so a simple copy is probably off the table.)
Some additional notes:
System Restore is not promising since I have no idea when it may have occurred and only two "critical updates". are listed as restore points for some reason. I know there have been others since I created several myself. But the space allocated for restore points is only at 2.5gB out of 10gB allocated so I don't understand that unless a Windows update deleted all previous restore points. Besides that, I am sure I have been chasing a solution since before the dates on those.
To make it worse, this is the computer my wife uses. She is an experienced user, but not a "computer-type". It is always possible that she did something to cause the problem, but I expect it is the result of a glitch of some sort, not a keyboard error. I want My Documents to appear as a library so she doesn't have to expand the view of the network drive with the risk that she might move or delete something there by accident.
My Computer
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
- Various Dell
- OS
- Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit