Pictures and Music are no longer Documents?

[just bob]

I made a shortcut on my desktop to the "Documents" folder, but my Music and
Pictures folders are not in there. Do I now need a shortcut to all three of
these folders on my desktop? I have an icon on my desktop named for me
(UserProfile folder?), but it contains a bunch of other folders and
shortcuts to things I probably should be using. Overall, it's just too
busy - who can keep track of where to put which files? Is the UserProfile
folder the new pseudo "My Documents"

In mine I've got

AppData
Application Data
Contacts
Cookies
desktop
Documents
Downloads
favorites
Links
Local Settings
Music
My Documents
NetHood
Pictures
PrintHood
Recent
Saved Games
Searches
SendTo
StartMenu
Templates
Videos
(and a bunch of system files)

This doesn't look like a place a user is supposed to be mucking around.
Delete or rename a few of these and I bet your system would be hosed real
quick. So why do I have a system folder shortcut on my desktop to all this
stuff? We've gone from having a nice My Documents folder with subfolders of
MyMusic, My Videos, My Pictures, to all of this? Tell me I'm missing
something.

I really need to see the whitepaper the MS engineers wrote to understand how
they intended this to work. Maybe it looked good on paper but with all these
junctions the UserProfile folder is just a mess and too confusing when you
want to file away a document.

And why are all the shortcuts/junctions in this folder read-only? When I
click on them I get an error: access denied. How annoying!

-Bob

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

If you turned off showing hidden files and folders and protected OS files,
things would look a little cleaner -- but I understand some people's
reluctance to do so -- I'm one of them

The junctions exist for compatibility with older/poorly coded software that
assumed XP-style folder names rather than 'asking' the OS where the user's
folders are. Theoretically, if all your software is complient, the
junctions can be deleted without any ill effect. You could try deleting
them & seeing if all your software still works -- if it doesn't, they're
easy enough to recreate.

I do agree that the design is questionable -- probably would have been
better to branch the UserProfile into Shell Folders & System
Files/Folders...

However, one trick I discovered does let you keep showing hidden/system
files and still get a cleaner look to the UserName folder on the Desktop.
If you open regedit & navigate to:

"HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\UsersFiles\NameSpace"

and delete the 'DelegateFolders' subkey, only the shell folders:

Contacts
Desktop
Documents
Downloads
Favorites
Links
Music
Pictures
Saved Games
Searches
Videos

will be displayed. Items such as AppData, folder junctions, and ntuser.dat
will not show.

Another option would be make Documents visible on the Desktop again -- I
describe how here:


You could then hide the UserProfile folder. Combined with creating
shortcuts, or better yet, junctions to Music and Pictures in your Documents
folder, this could give the folder structure you desire.