Invisible special XP folders like "My Music" and My Videos" in Vista.

C

ceed

Hi,

I have noticed that a back-up program I use and also a file search
keeps finding the old Windows XP special folders in Vista. It's
folders like "My Music", "My Documents" and "Nethood". There's
actually quite a few more in my user directory, but I'm not going to
list them all. However, I can not see this directories in Windows
Explorer and they cause error messages when I try to open them from
other programs. My back-up stops with an error also since it isn't
able to read inside these invisible directories. What are these, and
do I need them for anything? They must be some legacy thing from
Windows XP since I recognize the names of them, but why are they
present and invisible on Vista?

//C
 
R

Robert Firth

There are there because some programs expect them to be there. The are
junctions, only there for application compatibility. They are hidden for a
reason, leave them alone and all will be well :)

Robert Firth
http://www.winvistainfo.org
 
C

ceed

There are there because some programs expect them to be there. The are
junctions, only there for application compatibility. They are hidden for a
reason, leave them alone and all will be well :)

Robert Firthhttp://www.winvistainfo.org








- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

No, all is not well. My back-up program which I have been using for
years doesn't work because of all the errors caused by these
directories which can not be read. I wish I could at least see them.
So I guess it's backwards compatibility for some programs, and
problems for others. I hate it when the OS hides stuff from me. I paid
for it! I want to see and mess and break it. It's mine! :)

And I was so happy because I had just gotten rid of UAC.......sigh...

//C
 
C

ceed

Yup ceed--

You are getting frustrated over junction or reparse points:

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_junction_point

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/WindowsVistaJunctionsAndMovingMyDocumen...

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/MoreOnVistaReparsePoints.aspx

http://windowsconnected.com/blogs/joshs_blog/archive/2006/09/28/Windo...

http://www.svrops.com/svrops/articles/jpoints.htm

CH
Click to expand...
Ah! Thanks! So now I have to worry about junctions breaking my back-
up. Oh joy....and it's for back-up compatibility? Doesn't work in this
case.

//C
 
C

Chad Harris

Ceed--

How are you backing up? What backup program are you using and what happens?
Junctions should not be breaking your backup whether you use the Backup and
Restore center on the control panel or some app like Acronis.

CH
 
C

ceed

Ceed--

How are you backing up? What backup program are you using and what happens?
Junctions should not be breaking your backup whether you use the Backup and
Restore center on the control panel or some app like Acronis.

CH
Click to expand...
I'm doing what I have always done: Using WinRAR to back up all my data
and then sync the back-up sets weekly. It has worked flawlessly for
years. Now I get all these messages from WinRAR about folders that
can't be read and the back-up set creation quits. This is a simple but
effective back-up. I would really like to be able to continue doing
it. I will also ask RARLab to included an option to ignore junctions
in their settings. That would solve the problem.

//ceed
 
C

ceed

Ceed--

By any chance are you trying to use the ImageX tool? If so see:

You cannot use the ImageX.exe tool as a backup tool on a Windows Vista-based
computerhttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/935467/en-us
Click to expand...
No, thank you for the link. I am simply using WinRAR. Have done so for
years without problems. I am hoping they, RarLab, will fix it in
WinRAR so that junctions can be ignored when adding files to back-up
sets.

//ceed
 
C

ceed

Ceed--

How are you backing up? What backup program are you using and what happens?
Junctions should not be breaking your backup whether you use the Backup and
Restore center on the control panel or some app like Acronis.

CH








- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

Update: RarLab has already fixed this in a test build they sent me
which ignores the junctions. Problem solved! What a great piece of
software WinRAR is.. :)

//ceed
 
C

Chad Harris

I understand. I'd contact them at (e-mail address removed) . I noticed on their
site they say that they fixed conflicts with UAC (althought one could argue
that the conflict with UAC is Redmond MSFT) and I still think the Apple
commercial is dead on although I've gotten use to their incessant prompts in
one of their Beta Builds and they're pretty progressive but I'd contact them
to get the latest prospect for an update that will address this.

Good luck,

CH
 

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