- Joined
- Mar 24, 2004
This thread is an informative thread meant to help people avoid issues with changing their Documents folder to a seperate hard drive or seperate location from the OS drive in Vista.
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I thought changing my Documents folder location worked the same way that it did in XP, where if you changed the Documents folder to D:\, it would create all the extra folders inside of the D:\ drive like My Pictures, my Videos, and save your saved games and stuff inside their own folders such as D:\battlefield 2\.
In vista, you have to individually set the directory for each folder. So, if you wanted to move c:\users\Erik\Documents to your D:\ drive, a recommended directory would be D:\users\Erik\Documents; Not just D:\, this can cause serious problems requiring a reformat.
You have to then individually set each folder to a new directory on the other drive.
I didn't do this and caused a neverending loop inside of itself. Documents thought it was the primary folder and that the D:\ drive was inside of it. When I opened the D:\ drive it was lower on the Tree and I couldn't see the Documents folder.
This played hell on me when I tried to edit the folder, because there was no option anywhere to move it back because as far as Windows was concerned, it no longer existed. The loop was so ****ed up that Documents was D:\ and D:\ was documents. Documents\D:\Documents\D:\Documents, to the end where one just did not exist.
This confused Guild Wars so bad that when it tried to save a template it ended up creating triple empty folders on the desktop, putting the template there, and you couldn't delete/rename/load or do anything to the folder or files because they didn't exist.
Nice little bug there I had fun messing around with and eventually had to reformat and reinstall from scratch again.
While using the correct method I found another bug. If my Favorites folder is located on my D:\ drive, then IE7 won't save favorites to it. Gives me an error when I try to create a favorite because the default favorite location isn't where it thinks it should be. I moved the Favorites folder back to the default location on the C:\ drive (with the Location menu in properties, like I did the first time), and now the links work again.
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The correct method for changing your Documents folder to a new hard drive location is as follows:
1) Find your way to your OS hard drive, users, your user name folder. (e.g. C:\users\Erik\)
2) Right click on your Documents folder and choose properties.
3) Choose location at the top of the screen.
4) Either choose the Move button and choose a new folder location where you want your Document files to be moved, or input the link directly into the location bar.
Notice: Remember to choose a likely folder name as is already set by Windows. For example, if you want to move your Documents folder from your C:\ drive to your D:\ drive, I STRONGLY recommend you only change the drive letter in the location bar. C:\users\Erik\Documents, changed to D:\users\Erik\Documents.
5) When prompted, choose that you want to move all of your existing files in this folder. If you don't you will have copies of the same files in different locations and the programs you use in Vista will create files in the wrong folders! Some of your programs will put their documents in the older folder, some will put them in the new folder, and you may have a problem when that program tries to load the files it's looking for.
6) You're done now.
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As the way Vista is right now, I recommend only changing your documents folder to a different drive and not the other foles inside of your Username folder. You can move the others, but some have problems like the Links folder. As an informative post, I will share that I have not had problems with any other folders other than the Links folder, but I thought I should warn you that it may happen. I currently have all my Document and other type folders in my username folder on my D:\ drive except for the Links folder.
Hope this helps, good luck playing around with Vista Beta 3!!! er, I mean Retail!!
---
I thought changing my Documents folder location worked the same way that it did in XP, where if you changed the Documents folder to D:\, it would create all the extra folders inside of the D:\ drive like My Pictures, my Videos, and save your saved games and stuff inside their own folders such as D:\battlefield 2\.
In vista, you have to individually set the directory for each folder. So, if you wanted to move c:\users\Erik\Documents to your D:\ drive, a recommended directory would be D:\users\Erik\Documents; Not just D:\, this can cause serious problems requiring a reformat.
You have to then individually set each folder to a new directory on the other drive.
I didn't do this and caused a neverending loop inside of itself. Documents thought it was the primary folder and that the D:\ drive was inside of it. When I opened the D:\ drive it was lower on the Tree and I couldn't see the Documents folder.
This played hell on me when I tried to edit the folder, because there was no option anywhere to move it back because as far as Windows was concerned, it no longer existed. The loop was so ****ed up that Documents was D:\ and D:\ was documents. Documents\D:\Documents\D:\Documents, to the end where one just did not exist.
This confused Guild Wars so bad that when it tried to save a template it ended up creating triple empty folders on the desktop, putting the template there, and you couldn't delete/rename/load or do anything to the folder or files because they didn't exist.
Nice little bug there I had fun messing around with and eventually had to reformat and reinstall from scratch again.
While using the correct method I found another bug. If my Favorites folder is located on my D:\ drive, then IE7 won't save favorites to it. Gives me an error when I try to create a favorite because the default favorite location isn't where it thinks it should be. I moved the Favorites folder back to the default location on the C:\ drive (with the Location menu in properties, like I did the first time), and now the links work again.
--
The correct method for changing your Documents folder to a new hard drive location is as follows:
1) Find your way to your OS hard drive, users, your user name folder. (e.g. C:\users\Erik\)
2) Right click on your Documents folder and choose properties.
3) Choose location at the top of the screen.
4) Either choose the Move button and choose a new folder location where you want your Document files to be moved, or input the link directly into the location bar.
Notice: Remember to choose a likely folder name as is already set by Windows. For example, if you want to move your Documents folder from your C:\ drive to your D:\ drive, I STRONGLY recommend you only change the drive letter in the location bar. C:\users\Erik\Documents, changed to D:\users\Erik\Documents.
5) When prompted, choose that you want to move all of your existing files in this folder. If you don't you will have copies of the same files in different locations and the programs you use in Vista will create files in the wrong folders! Some of your programs will put their documents in the older folder, some will put them in the new folder, and you may have a problem when that program tries to load the files it's looking for.
6) You're done now.
---
As the way Vista is right now, I recommend only changing your documents folder to a different drive and not the other foles inside of your Username folder. You can move the others, but some have problems like the Links folder. As an informative post, I will share that I have not had problems with any other folders other than the Links folder, but I thought I should warn you that it may happen. I currently have all my Document and other type folders in my username folder on my D:\ drive except for the Links folder.
Hope this helps, good luck playing around with Vista Beta 3!!! er, I mean Retail!!
