Document and Settings Folder

[Guest]

I recently re-installed Windows XP Pro on one of my machines. In fact, I
ended up installing a few times. I didn't wipe the hard drive clean, rather,
I reinstalled XP, saving data and settings. Now I have a situation where I
have multiple folders in documents and settings folder in Explorer. I have
folders labeled DAD, DAD.OFFICE1, DAD~1~DAD, DAD~1~OFF, and
Dad.DAD-2Q8AUZ4FBYD. This is most annoying. I'm hesitant to just move the
contents of the many folders to one folder without better understanding the
implications of doing so. Also, that seems like that will be a tedious task.
The folder that seems to be the default folder is DAD.OFFICE1. What should
I have done differently when installing Windows and how might I clean up this
mess in Explorer?

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

You should have done a repair installation (also known as an in place
upgrade) to retain the original folder structure. By simply forcing new
installations, you force the system to develop a new user profile folder
each time. The others are now unusable and you can simply copy the data you
want to keep from them into the current one. To discover which is the
correct one, click start/run and type %USERPROFILE%, then click ok. It will
open to the profile folder currently in use.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org