System Folder (Favorites) Broken

[Colin]

I had changed my Favorites Folder a few times with no problem (Start | right
click on Favorites | enter a new folder in the Location tab). Just today, I
tried to use a Briefcase so I could share between computers, and it asked me
about the desktop.ini file. I think I made a bad choice in answering the
question, because now the Location tab is gone from my Favorites properties
under the Start menu. It's now stuck at the last location I had set for my
Favorites.

How do I restore this?

Thanks,
Colin

 

[Guest]

Go to the Start Orb and type "shell:favorites" (without the quotes) into the
search box. That should take you to the favorites folder and reset things.

 

[Colin]

I'm afraid it just opened an empty Favorites folders, but it didn't fix the
problem. I still don't have a "Location" tab for favorites like I used to.
Also, the Favorites under the Start menu is still the one mapped to another
computer.

I'm sure this is related. There are 2 folders called "Favorites" in my
User/Name directory. Both have the green folder with star icon. If I do a
DIR from a command prompt, only 1 is really called Favorites.

Any idea how to fix this?

Thanks,
Colin

 

[Guest]

You can copy the contents of the real favorites to a temporary folder then
delete both of them. Windows will recreate the folder and then you can copy
from the temp file.

 

[Colin]

If I could just delete and re-create the whole Favorites folder, maybe that
would fix things. Is there any way to do that?

Thanks,
Colin

 

[Colin]

That did reduce me down to 1 Favorites folder, but the location tab is still
missing from the properties.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Colin

 

[Guest]

Yes, you should be able to just delete it.

 

[dean-dean]

Yes, deleting the all the Favorites folders is probably your best bet.
Renaming them won't work (the desktop.ini will compensate, saying,
basically, that it's your Favorites folder, but show another name using its
LocalizedResourceName function). Copy and Paste all your bookmark files and
folders into a New Folder, except the desktop.ini and the Links folder. In
New Folder, create another folder called Old Links. Copy your bookmark
files and folders under Links (except the desktop.ini) to the Old Links
folder. In the Registry Editor, go to these two keys to reset the defaults:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell
Folders
In the right-hand pane, right-click on Favorites and choose Modify. Change
the data to "C:\Users\(Your Name)\Favorites" (without quotation marks), if
it's not that already.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User
Shell Folders
In the right-hand pane, right-click on Favorites and choose Modify. Change
the data to "%USERPROFILE%\Favorites" (without quotation marks), if it's not
that already.

Delete all the Favorites folders. Log Off, and then Log back ON. Press the
Windows key + R on your keyboard.

Type "shell:favorites" (without quotation marks) in the Run box, and press
OK. Hopefully, a new Favorites folder will pop up in Windows Explorer in
the default location, with the correct blue-green icon. It's Properties
should have a Location tab. It should contain a Links folder. Move your
files back to Favorites from New Folder and Old Links.