SOLVED Oops, I lost a Users folder

[JeremyCT]

Background:

I have an SSD and 3 HDDs. I have various Users directories relocated from the SSD to one of the HDDs to save space on the SSD. I used the "Location" tab under folder properties to do this. Worked fine.

Not thinking in through, yesterday I decided to re-letter my HDDs to an order that would work better for various reasons. One of the drives that got "re-lettered" was the one that my Users directories got relocated to.

This caused Windows to get all confused. I managed to find registry entries and fix the Classic Shell Entries for all the stuff that got messed up. However, the Downloads folder is still jacked. IE and FF download to my desktop and when I click "Downloads" in the File Manager I get an Explorer.exe error that states "This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Please install a program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel."

I can find information on changing the IE default download location, not about changing/fixing the Windows Downloads folder location once Window's think that it's gone missing.

 

[Solder]

The registry entries you're talking about are here...

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

The default Downloads folder is the second one down in the list with a long number string. Change that one to the new Downloads folder location.

%USERPROFILE%\Downloads

Change to...

D:\Downloads

All the rest of the default file locations are here in this list as well. The entry called Personal is your My Documents folder.

 

[JeremyCT]

Funny story. I had found the "Shell Folders" entry but somehow missed the "User Shell Folders" entry. Apparently the latter one takes precedence over the former if they're not in agreement.

Hopefully that fixes it, thanks.

 

[JeremyCT]

One last fix. The problem with the File Explorer entry on the left column was related to a broken shortcut/link in the Users\Links folder. I couldn't re-point the shortcut for some reason, so I deleted it and created a new link. Now File Explorer works properly, and the registry change seems to have fixed the rest.

 

[Solder]

Nice work

 

[Solder]

I just remembered, re: networking, the two have to match as far as your shared folders and their default locations or there could be access problems over the network.
So when changing those directories in the registry, Shell Folders and User Shell Folders should be set to the same values.