Documents and Settings XP Folders..How Are They Named?

[Sid Joyner]

Hi All:

Hoping someone can help me here....

I just rebuilt my computer from scratch in order to have a new clean install
of XP and have a nice reorganization of folders on my computer. I took a
brand new disk, installed XP Professional on it, installed SP1, and applied
all the updates from Windows Update. I also ran the network setup wizard so
I could see other computers on my LAN.

So I look inside my Documents and Settings folder and I find multiple
redundant folders - exactly the thing I was trying to avoid. My Windows user
name is Pete and my machine name is Alien. I now have 6 folders in my
Documents and Settings folder: the usual ones that I expect - All Users,
Default User, and Pete - and these redundant folders - All Users.WINDOWS,
Default User.WINDOWS, and Pete.Alien. These latter three are being used by
the XP installation as the registered representative folders (such as
placement of Startup items) and the first three are no longer being used by
the system.

I want to understand this before I go any further. I would prefer that the
first three are the only folders as these are the names I'm used to. I'm
sure I could get some help learning how to change this back in the registry.
But do I want to? There must be some reason (hopefully a good one) why XP
created these additional folders in the first place during the installation
and updates procedure.

Can anyone explain why XP created these additional folders and is there a
good reason why I should let them continue to be the default folders
recognized by XP? And if so, shouldn't I be able to delete the original
ones? Three of these folders have to go.

Thanks for any advice or help.

Sid

 

[Wesley Vogel]

Sid;

I have these >>

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users
C:\Documents and Settings\Default User
C:\Documents and Settings\LocalService
C:\Documents and Settings\NetworkService
C:\Documents and Settings\I Me Mine

XP creates these because XP is multi-user friendly.
If you like, you can delete all of them.
If you like, you can even delete >>
C:\Documents and Settings
However, I would advise against this.

Start in Safe Mode with Command Prompt and delete from there.

 

[Sharon F]

I now have 6 folders in my
Documents and Settings folder: the usual ones that I expect - All Users,
Default User, and Pete - and these redundant folders - All Users.WINDOWS,
Default User.WINDOWS, and Pete.Alien.

The folders that end with .somename are due to leftovers from a previous
install. Windows adds the extra characters to differentiate them from
previous accounts with the same name. You may have intended to do a clean
install but you've accomplished an "over the top" install instead.

When you run setup and get to the final part where you choose where to
install Windows, press Escape (pretty sure that's the right key, going by
memory here) to get to the disk tools. Delete the existing partition.
Recreate it. Format it and then proceed with the installation.

A reference page for clean installs that includes screenshots of the setup
screens can be found here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

 

[Jetro]

Edit
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\ProfilesDirecto
ry and existed S-1-5-21... ProfileImagePath data. Delete excessive
directories.