Missing "Documents" and "Music" folders after upgrade from Windows XP. Anyone know how to recreate

[Sean]

Hi,

After upgrading from XP to Vista, I now don't have a "Documents" or a
"Music" folder. The folders simply do not exist in my "User" folder. (This
might be related to the fact that on XP, I had redirected these locations to
folders on an external hard drive.)

Anyone kno whow to re-create them?

thanks!
-Sean

 

[Michael]

Try:
click on the windows/start button
in 'start search' box type Documents
see where that goes

Michael

 

[Sean]

When I follow your instructions, a lot of search results appear, but they
don't look relevant. (For example: there's the "Documents" folder in the
Guest account, but not in my own account.)

Also, when I click on the Start button and click "Documents" or "Music",
nothing happens. And when I right click on them, I get an empty properties
dialog with only 1 tab ("General") with all of the fields blank, rather than
the expected 6 tabs with all the fields populated.

-Sean

 

[Don]

Hi,

After upgrading from XP to Vista, I now don't have a "Documents" or a
"Music" folder. The folders simply do not exist in my "User" folder.
(This might be related to the fact that on XP, I had redirected these
locations to folders on an external hard drive.)

I would guess you are correct. The installer just isn't smart enough to
allow for deviants like you ;o)

As long as Vista recognizes your external drive (not everyone has been
lucky in that way) you should have no trouble finding the folders in
Explorer and creating shortcuts to them on your Desktop. There may be
more savvy ways to do this with Registry edits or whatnot, but that's
the way I would do it.

As an aside, Vista has renamed some traditional places with changes like
My Documents --> Documents, etc.

 

[Michael]

I suspect that you could get things back with some registry changes but that
is a lot of work.

You could consider creating a new user account, hopefully that would have
the organization that Vista expects. You could move the files after and then
delete the original account. You might wait a bit to see if someone here
comes up with registry or reset instructions. I can't think of more help.

Good luck,
Michael

 

[Sean]

Ahh that's an interesting idea to create a new user account.

I did find some registry values associated with these default folders, and I
*was* able to recreate the My Music folder with all of its associated
behavior (Start menu "Music" command links to this folder, you can redirect
to a new location, etc.) The only problem is that it doesn't have the fancy
"Music" icon. It just looks like a plain folder. Argh.

The registry keys are in these two locations:
- HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
- HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell
Folders

Also after you change the reg keys you may have to restart your machine, log
out/log in, and/or restart Explorer.

Given that I've had enough problems with the Vista upgrade, I think I'm
going to back up all my profile data and do a clean install.

-Sean