Documents & Settings vs. Users folders

[Mike in Nebraska]

OS: Vista Business; upgraded from Win XP Pro SP3. Joined to a WinSer 2003
domain.

I just noticed that I have (near) identical files and folders in my
C:\Documents and Settings folder and the C:\Users folder. Is this because
it was an upgrade? Is there a way to eliminate one of them to free up some
HD space?

 

[Poutnik]

OS: Vista Business; upgraded from Win XP Pro SP3. Joined to a WinSer 2003
domain.

I just noticed that I have (near) identical files and folders in my
C:\Documents and Settings folder and the C:\Users folder. Is this because
it was an upgrade? Is there a way to eliminate one of them to free up some
HD space?

C:\Documents and Settings folder is probably just junction
or directory symlink to Users folder.( for compatibility reason ).
there is more such redirections in Vista.

Practically, they are just 2 pointers to the same folder.
Whatever you change in C:\Documents and Settings,
will be changed in C:\users and vice verse.

Similarly, vista uses also plenty of file hardlinks
( didferent pathnames to the same file )
E.g. Many files in system32 ( or syswow64 ) folder
are just hardlinks to huge winsxs folder.

 

[Poutnik]

For more search for
Vista command mklink,
junctions,
hardlinks
symlinks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link

 

[Mike in Nebraska]

Thanks!

For more search for
Vista command mklink,
junctions,
hardlinks
symlinks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link