Finding Favorites on Vista

[sandy]

Hi... I recently purchased as laptop and had a professional, who I can no
longer reach, as he is on the other side of the country, transfer my
favorites list from old to new computer. Now, when I launch IE 7 (?) it
tells me that my favorites are in a path that is not available. I also have
mozilla Firefox and its Bookmarks are working fine.
How can I find and/or change or re-link my IE favorites file. When I try to
add new links to my favorites with IE they disappear and become inaccessible
too. How can I create a proper path to put my favorites in.

 

[+Bob+]

Hi... I recently purchased as laptop and had a professional, who I can no
longer reach, as he is on the other side of the country, transfer my
favorites list from old to new computer. Now, when I launch IE 7 (?) it
tells me that my favorites are in a path that is not available. I also have
mozilla Firefox and its Bookmarks are working fine.
How can I find and/or change or re-link my IE favorites file. When I try to
add new links to my favorites with IE they disappear and become inaccessible
too. How can I create a proper path to put my favorites in.

Are you comfortable editing the registry? The key you need to change
is:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User
Shell Folders]

Set the value to whereever you have your favorites. If you want it to
be at the default location, I believe that would be:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Favorites

 

[sandy]

Thanks for your answer. I could probably put the correct path into the
registry, but first one or two basic questions.
Is the correct path to look like this?
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\IE7\Explorer\%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Favorites
and
Where can I find current version information. It is certainly not at the
bottom of this help tab.
and
is "%userprofile%" meant to say what the name of this computer is.? I see
files that begin with Candice in their directory. Why it is named so I have
no clue. Will I need to surround it with the % symbols.

As you can tell I am a bit lost when it comes to even finding registry
files. Maybe I shouldn't attempt this?

Hi... I recently purchased as laptop and had a professional, who I can no
longer reach, as he is on the other side of the country, transfer my
favorites list from old to new computer. Now, when I launch IE 7 (?) it
tells me that my favorites are in a path that is not available. I also
have
mozilla Firefox and its Bookmarks are working fine.
How can I find and/or change or re-link my IE favorites file. When I try
to
add new links to my favorites with IE they disappear and become
inaccessible
too. How can I create a proper path to put my favorites in.

Are you comfortable editing the registry? The key you need to change
is:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Favorites

Set the value to whereever you have your favorites. If you want it to
be at the default location, I believe that would be:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Favorites

 

[+Bob+]

Thanks for your answer. I could probably put the correct path into the
registry, but first one or two basic questions.
Is the correct path to look like this?
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\IE7\Explorer\%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Favorites
and
Where can I find current version information. It is certainly not at the
bottom of this help tab.
and
is "%userprofile%" meant to say what the name of this computer is.? I see
files that begin with Candice in their directory. Why it is named so I have
no clue. Will I need to surround it with the % symbols.

As you can tell I am a bit lost when it comes to even finding registry
files. Maybe I shouldn't attempt this?

Probably not. But, here's the short course. It might be best to find a
friend who has done it before. But for a start, you could check to see
where MSIE is looking for the favorites and get an idea what the
"professional" might have done to change it.

Start -> Run -> Regedit.

You will see five main keys. Double click on the one labeled
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER". Under than you will see one called "Software".
Double click on that. Continue working your way down through each of
these keys:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User
Shell Folders]

until you find one labeled UserShellFolders. When you get down to that
level, you will see a list of "String Values" in the right hand pane
window of Regedit. One of those will be "Favorites". Right click on
that item and choose "Modify". It will bring up a box/window where you
can modify the data value. Don't change it - but do COPY it and post
it here. Then click Cancel and exit Regedit.

You won't make any changes this way and we can analyze what's going on
with your favorites. You will also be a bit more educated in registry
editing

 

[sandy]

Thanks for your answer. I could probably put the correct path into the
registry, but first one or two basic questions.
Is the correct path to look like this?
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\IE7\Explorer\%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Favorites
and
Where can I find current version information. It is certainly not at the
bottom of this help tab.
and
is "%userprofile%" meant to say what the name of this computer is.? I see
files that begin with Candice in their directory. Why it is named so I
have
no clue. Will I need to surround it with the % symbols.

As you can tell I am a bit lost when it comes to even finding registry
files. Maybe I shouldn't attempt this?

Probably not. But, here's the short course. It might be best to find a
friend who has done it before. But for a start, you could check to see
where MSIE is looking for the favorites and get an idea what the
"professional" might have done to change it.

Start -> Run -> Regedit.

You will see five main keys. Double click on the one labeled
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER". Under than you will see one called "Software".
Double click on that. Continue working your way down through each of
these keys:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User
Shell Folders]

until you find one labeled UserShellFolders. When you get down to that
level, you will see a list of "String Values" in the right hand pane
window of Regedit. One of those will be "Favorites". Right click on
that item and choose "Modify". It will bring up a box/window where you
can modify the data value. Don't change it - but do COPY it and post
it here. Then click Cancel and exit Regedit.

You won't make any changes this way and we can analyze what's going on
with your favorites. You will also be a bit more educated in registry
editing

Here is that copy. It looks right.
%USERPROFILE%\Favorites

When trying to access favorites this error message comes up...
Well... guess what... now it is working properly and even saving a new
webpage to the list.
I had, yesterday, taken whs's advise and imported a list.
I also used windows explorer to move the favorite file that was in the
"download" directory that the "pro" had created into a different path. Maybe
one or both of those things worked to solve my problem, but it seems to be
solved. Thank you for your good help and now I know how to find the registry
editor so that's a good thing, but I won't be doing such without asking here
first.