Redirecting My Documents

[Ken Springer]

Situation:

One computer with one user, but two accounts are on the computer. The
same user currently uses both accounts, but I'm trying to get the user
to use just one account.

Two questions:

1. Is it possible to redirect My Documents from both accounts to the
same location on a different drive/partition?

2. Could it be done safely to an external USB drive that may or may not
be occasionally disconnected? The assumption is, when the drive is
disconnected, nothing will be saved to My Documents.

I'm trying to help a friend clean up the mess he's created on his old
computer over many years. I'm not sure how he got started doing what he
did, but I suspect it was out of ignorance.

Ultimately, I'm hoping to get him to use a limited account on a daily
basis, and never ever using the administrator account except in the case
of emergency. If I can convince him to do this, then we can move his
docs from the admin account to the limited account.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

 

[David H. Lipman]

Situation:

One computer with one user, but two accounts are on the computer. The same user
currently uses both accounts, but I'm trying to get the user to use just one account.

Two questions:

1. Is it possible to redirect My Documents from both accounts to the same location on a
different drive/partition?

2. Could it be done safely to an external USB drive that may or may not be occasionally
disconnected? The assumption is, when the drive is disconnected, nothing will be saved
to My Documents.

I'm trying to help a friend clean up the mess he's created on his old computer over many
years. I'm not sure how he got started doing what he did, but I suspect it was out of
ignorance.

Ultimately, I'm hoping to get him to use a limited account on a daily basis, and never
ever using the administrator account except in the case of emergency. If I can convince
him to do this, then we can move his docs from the admin account to the limited account.

--

Look under
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

Also you can change it by Right-Clicking on "My Documents" and change "Target folder
location".

 

[Ken Springer]

Also you can change it by Right-Clicking on "My Documents" and change "Target folder
location".

Hi, David,

Unless I went at it wrong, this won't work for both accounts.

Here's what I did:

1. Open admin account
2. Set Target Folder Location to the desired folder on another drive.
3. Closed admin account and opened user (limited) account.
4. When I tried to set the Target Folder Location, the folder I
selected for the admin account is not displayed. And that is the folder
I want to use.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

 

[Ken Springer]

On 6/14/12 8:03 PM, David H. Lipman wrote:

Hi, David,

In each account, load Regedit and hard code it into each account for the
appropriate ShellFolder.

Not afraid to edit the registry, but I do avoid it. I can screw things
up bad enough without doing that! LOL So, I've never learned much
about what is where.

Any simple instructions on the web somewhere on how to accomplish this?


--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

 

[Ken Springer]

Was "Target folder location" actually offered, but you just couldn't see
the desired folder?

It was.

It occurs to me that if, due to the joys of NTFS, the desired folder is
one that can only be seen by the administrator account, then even
tweaking the registry won't sort it. Check the permissions on that
folder?

As soon as it wouldn't let me select the folder I wanted, my first
thought it was tied to preventing a user access to other users accounts.
I'll try to check that out on my machine later today.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

 

[glee]

Was "Target folder location" actually offered, but you just couldn't
see the desired folder?
It occurs to me that if, due to the joys of NTFS, the desired folder
is one that can only be seen by the administrator account, then even
tweaking the registry won't sort it. Check the permissions on that
folder?

Yes, it sounds to me like the desired target folder may not have
permissions set to Full Control for the limited user account.... may not
have any permissions at all for that folder.

Either way, going through the "Move... Change target" dialog from the
right-click properties of the My Documents shortcut does not seem like
the way to get anywhere in this case.

 

[Ken Springer]

Either way, going through the "Move... Change target" dialog from the
right-click properties of the My Documents shortcut does not seem like
the way to get anywhere in this case.

I think one thing to remember is I'm wanting to do something here I
suspect almost no one would normally do. So, I would expect some
difficulties! LOL

I've never had a need to do this before, and the right-click method
always worked for what I needed to do in each case.

Ya learn something new every day.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

 

[Ken Springer]

No, it has been done.

A very mioptic group unilaterally decided to implement this on an AD.

"AD"??? (Just impossible to remember all acronyms. LOL)

What they did was partition notebooks with "C:" (OS) "D:" (data).

That's actually my preferred method, and used to be very common. And I
still think it's the better way should disaster strike the OS.

They forced each user's documents into a d:\documents folder.

So they forced all users to use the same documents folder on D:\?
That's dumb!

I move My Docs to another drive, but create different folders for each user.

Unfortunately this meant commingling of multiple user's data. The WORST
part was the application of EFS. It was a bloody nightmare.

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

 

[Ken Springer]

The point is you can have multiple accounts point to the same folder. It is
just a matter of setting the ShellFolder Registry setting accordingly and
making sure NTFS permissions are also set accordingly.

Still trying to figure out how to get it done in Home. But being
stubborn, I'll get it figured out. LOL

Unfortunately, have to go on hold because... well.... have to go to work
for the next two days! <grin>

--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2

 

[Ken Springer]

I think in XP Home you have to go into Safe Mode to set NTFS permissions.

You do. Found that in an MS knowledge base article. Thought I did it
right, but obviously didn't since it didn't work! LOL




--
Ken

Mac OS X 10.6.8
Firefox 12.0
Thunderbird 12.0.1
LibreOffice 3.5.2.2