Documents & Settings Can of Worms: Too Many Folders

[Clueless in Seattle]

I've got eight different sub folders under Documents and Settings:

Administrator
Administrator.MICRON
All Users
All Users.WINNT
Anonymous
anonymous.MICRON
Default.User
Default User.WINNT

What do you call the concept that these sub folders refer to?
"Profiles"? "Users"? "I.D.s"? For now I'll call them "Users" for
lack of the proper term.

Trouble is, important data and program files have somehow gotten
scattered around amongst all of these different "Users."

I am the only user of this computer and so would like to have all of
my data and program files together in a single "User."

How may I sort out this mess?

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"

P.S. As for the question of how my Documents and Settings folder got
so scrambled up in the first place, I only have part of the answer.
One cause was that I first installed Windows 2000 as an upgrade to
Windows 98. But that installation became so unstable that I tried a
clean install of Windows 2000.

 

[happymac.support]

I've got eight different sub folders under Documents and Settings:

Administrator
Administrator.MICRON
All Users
All Users.WINNT
Anonymous
anonymous.MICRON
Default.User
Default User.WINNT

What do you call the concept that these sub folders refer to?
"Profiles"? "Users"? "I.D.s"? For now I'll call them "Users" for
lack of the proper term.

Trouble is, important data and program files have somehow gotten
scattered around amongst all of these different "Users."

I am the only user of this computer and so would like to have all of
my data and program files together in a single "User."

How may I sort out this mess?

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"

P.S. As for the question of how my Documents and Settings folder got
so scrambled up in the first place, I only have part of the answer.
One cause was that I first installed Windows 2000 as an upgrade to
Windows 98. But that installation became so unstable that I tried a
clean install of Windows 2000.

Go to control panel and go to user accounts. How many accounts are
listed there? What is MICRON? It could have something to do with a
program you installed. If all these folders indeed do have account(s)
attached to them, its not going to be easy to clean up. Are you on a
server?

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

I've got eight different sub folders under Documents and Settings:

Administrator
Administrator.MICRON
All Users
All Users.WINNT
Anonymous
anonymous.MICRON
Default.User
Default User.WINNT

What do you call the concept that these sub folders refer to?
"Profiles"? "Users"? "I.D.s"? For now I'll call them "Users" for
lack of the proper term.

Trouble is, important data and program files have somehow gotten
scattered around amongst all of these different "Users."

I am the only user of this computer and so would like to have all of
my data and program files together in a single "User."

How may I sort out this mess?

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"

P.S. As for the question of how my Documents and Settings folder got
so scrambled up in the first place, I only have part of the answer.
One cause was that I first installed Windows 2000 as an upgrade to
Windows 98. But that installation became so unstable that I tried a
clean install of Windows 2000.

Was Windows reinstalled?
Create a new file in some program (Notepad is easy) and save it in My
Documents. Now use Windows Explorer to see which user has the new file.
That is the user currently being used. Drag any desired documents from the
other user to the current user.
As for missing programs, you will have to reinstall them.

 

[Jim]

I've got eight different sub folders under Documents and Settings:

Administrator
Administrator.MICRON
All Users
All Users.WINNT
Anonymous
anonymous.MICRON
Default.User
Default User.WINNT

What do you call the concept that these sub folders refer to?
"Profiles"? "Users"? "I.D.s"? For now I'll call them "Users" for
lack of the proper term.

Trouble is, important data and program files have somehow gotten
scattered around amongst all of these different "Users."

I am the only user of this computer and so would like to have all of
my data and program files together in a single "User."

How may I sort out this mess?

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"

P.S. As for the question of how my Documents and Settings folder got
so scrambled up in the first place, I only have part of the answer.
One cause was that I first installed Windows 2000 as an upgrade to
Windows 98. But that installation became so unstable that I tried a
clean install of Windows 2000.

These folders all belong to various accounts for people or groups of people.

In particular, these accounts are present on all XP systems (i. e. they were
created when you installed XP):

Administrator
All Users
Default User

It is probable that these accounts are left overs from Windows 2000:

All Users Winnt
Default User Winnt

It would seem that your system originated at Micron, and thus these accounts
are left over from the original installaton:

Administrator.MICRON
anonymous.MICRON

I don't know where the anonymous account originated.

You are also missing the Guest account which is part of XP.

You can delete many of them without shedding a tear. However, leave these
alone:

Administrator (You cannot delete this user)
All Users
Default User
Guest

In addition to the one which only you have access.

Having said all this, it seems to me that you are needlessly worrying about
these folders.

Jim

 

[Rock]

I've got eight different sub folders under Documents and Settings:

Administrator
Administrator.MICRON
All Users
All Users.WINNT
Anonymous
anonymous.MICRON
Default.User
Default User.WINNT

What do you call the concept that these sub folders refer to?
"Profiles"? "Users"? "I.D.s"? For now I'll call them "Users" for
lack of the proper term.

Trouble is, important data and program files have somehow gotten
scattered around amongst all of these different "Users."

I am the only user of this computer and so would like to have all of
my data and program files together in a single "User."

How may I sort out this mess?

Will in Seattle
a.k.a. "Clueless"

P.S. As for the question of how my Documents and Settings folder got
so scrambled up in the first place, I only have part of the answer.
One cause was that I first installed Windows 2000 as an upgrade to
Windows 98. But that installation became so unstable that I tried a
clean install of Windows 2000.

Are you running Windows 2000? If so this is an XP newsgroup. For windows
2000 post to this one:

microsoft.public.win2000.general

On the web
http://www.microsoft.com/communitie...189-a408-4423-8e95-f2050920b5e5&lang=en&cr=us