Want My Pictures and My Documents folder shortcuts on same level in Explore window

[Peter Sale]

My Documents (shortcut?) appears on the left hand side of my Windows XP Pro
Explore Window. Desktop, My Computer, My Network Places and Norton Protected
Recycle Bin also appear in this Windows Explorer window. It looks something
like this:

Desktop
+ My Documents
+ My Computer
+ My Network Places
+ Norton Protected Recycle Bin

It appears that My Documents is a shortcut to the "real" My Documents. I
would like to add My Pictures immediately under My Documents. However my
attempts to add a shortcut to My Pictures simply places a short cut to My
Pictures on the Desktop and this short cut does not appear on the left hand
side of my Windows XP Pro Explore window. What I am attempting to do is
display the shortcut for My Pictures as shown below:

Desktop
+ My Documents
+ My Pictures
+ My Computer
+ My Network Places
+ Norton Protected Recycle Bin

or perhaps

Desktop
+ My Documents
+ My Computer
+ My Network Places
+ My Pictures
+ Norton Protected Recycle Bin

How can I accomplish this?
--
Regards,

Peter Sale
Santa Monica, CA USA
To email me, just pull 'my-leg.'

 

[Moxie]

You won't get the same type of shortcut like you have for
My Documents. All you can do is place a REGULAR shortcut
like normal for the My Pictures, rearrange the icons on
your desktop to how you want to place them, and from then
on refrain (stop) using the right-click context menu on
the desktop to autoarrange or arrange by name, type etc.

If you use the right click context menu on the dektop to
arrange your icons, Windows will move your My Pictures
shortcut down below. There is no way to LOCK the icons
in place. I wish there was. The only way to do so is
with a third party program that customizes your desktop
like Desktop X or others. But Windows itself does not
allow you to LOCK them down.

Hell, I wish we can choose what side of screen
autoarrange etc works on. For example, I use CASCADE
windows all the time...but it cascades to the left side
of screen covering all my icons. So either allow us to
change side of screen we can CASCADE to...or let us
choose what side of screen to AUTOARRANGE or ARRANGE by
TYPE our icons to. If they won't allow us those options,
they should at least let us lock our icons into place
whereever we want them.

I would also like to choose what side of screen my START
button show on. If I have the taskbar on the bottom or
top of screen, the start button is always on the left
side, I want it on the right side due to how the new
double column start menu works. When you open ALL
PROGRAMS, it's overlapping the start menu instead of
appearing OFF of it (if you get what I mean). By
changing it to the right side of screen, it wouldn't.

Anyhow...ciao
----Original Message-----

 

[Peter Sale]

Hi Andrew,
Many thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete either
set of your instructions on my Windows XP Pro system because, in the first
case, after I opened "Taskbar and Start Menu" there was no "Advanced" tab,
only Taskbar and Start Menu tabs.

In the second case, after R clicking on the start button, there was no
choice "New Window."

Either I'm misinterpreting your directions or perhaps you are running some
other version (or configuration) of Windows that I'm running. BTW, I'm
running Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 1.

--
Regards,

Peter Sale
Santa Monica, CA USA
To email me, just pull 'my-leg.'

 

[Keith Miller]

You can use the info here:

http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/ui_shell.html

Cut and paste the reg file test found near the end of the page. Edit the values to suit your needs.

Keith

 

[cquirke (MVP Win9x)]

On Sun, 9 May 2004 08:23:44 -0700, "Peter Sale"

My Documents (shortcut?) appears on the left hand side of my Windows XP Pro
Explore Window. Desktop, My Computer, My Network Places and Norton Protected
Recycle Bin also appear in this Windows Explorer window. It looks something
like this:

Desktop
+ My Documents
+ My Computer
+ My Network Places
+ Norton Protected Recycle Bin

Yes. Namespace objects (if set to be displayed) such as "My Computer"
and directories ("File Folders") created on the desktop will appear so

It appears that My Documents is a shortcut to the "real" My Documents.

Yes; it is a "namespace object". These aren't files or directories,
but are nonetheless displayed as folders within the hierarchy
displayed by Windows Explorer.

Some namespace objects map to:

1) A particular directory, e.g. the "My Documents" object
2) A filtered view of a directory, e.g. "Control Panel"
3) An interpreted view of one or more container files, e.g. "History"
4) Other, e.g. "Dial-Up Networking", "Network Neighborhood"

If (1), then you will see the same content positioned both as per the
namespace object and where the actual directory exists.

If (2), you may see the items in another place in a different way,
e.g. the .CPL files within the System folder vs. "Control Panel"

If (3), you may see the raw container files if viewing the directory
in a namespace-unaware file browser.

would like to add My Pictures immediately under My Documents.

The best way to do that is to create a desktop shortcut that points to
whatever directory is "My Pictures", and name it that.

A definitive but difficut way would be to cause the directory to
appear there as a namespace object.

A dumb way to do that would be to drag the relevant directory to the
desktop and name it "My Pictures".

attempts to add a shortcut to My Pictures simply places a short cut to My
Pictures on the Desktop and this short cut does not appear on the left hand
side of my Windows XP Pro Explore window.

Oh, OK; yes, I can see that would be a problem.

XP seems to create different kinds of shortcuts in different ways - as
I found accidentally when trying to create a shortcut to a folder
within the Start Menu. Instead of the expected Folder icon with arrow
overlay that opened the folder when clicked, I got the folder itself,
appearing to work as a seamless extension of the menu.

That's close to what you want, so I might try to copy that to the
desktop and see if it works. But be careful to verify that what you
have *is* a shortcut, and not the only copy of the actual subtree you
are trying to point to. That would be Bad, in several ways.

I'm not in front of XP now, but I may play with this later when I am!

What I am attempting to do is display My Pictures as below:

Desktop
+ My Documents
+ My Pictures
+ My Computer
+ My Network Places
+ Norton Protected Recycle Bin

Yep. If my ideas bear fruit, I'll post back later ;-)

---------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

Certainty may be your biggest weakness

 

[Alex Nichol]

It appears that My Documents is a shortcut to the "real" My Documents. I
would like to add My Pictures immediately under My Documents. However my
attempts to add a shortcut to My Pictures simply places a short cut to My
Pictures on the Desktop and this short cut does not appear on the left hand
side of my Windows XP Pro Explore window. What I am attempting to do is
display the shortcut for My Pictures as shown below:

'My Documents' there is not a shortcut but a pointer in the registry and
you can't add additional ones to appear in that way - the references
used in the registry are inbuilt in Explorer's code. My Pictures is a
separate such reference and the My Pictures folder can be placed where
you like by using the TweakUI Powertoy to adjust the reference. But
such references must be kept distinct. So your best bet is having My
Pictures as a sub-folder of My Documents

 

[Keith Miller]

Cquirke's post made me realize you can use a folder shortcut -- you only need to go the CLSID/namespace route if you want to add the folder to My Computer, but you want it under desktop.

So here's the easy instructions:

Open one explorer window to My Documents and open a second by right-clicking the Start button and selecting 'Open'.

Right-click & drag the My Pictures folder from My Documents to the Start Menu folder. Select 'Create Shortcut here' when you release the mouse button.

Verify you've created the proper type of shortcut by viewing its properties. A folder shortcut has only a 'general' tab listing the type as 'folder' and displaying the target path.

Cut & paste or drag & drop the new shortcut onto the desktop.

Keith

You can use the info here:

http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/ui_shell.html

Cut and paste the reg file test found near the end of the page. Edit the values to suit your needs.

Keith

 

[Peter Sale]

Hi Keith,
That did the trick. "My Pictures" now appears on the left of my Explore
Window as shown below:
Desktop
+ My Documents
+ My Computer
+ My Network Places
Norton Protected Recycle Bin
+ My Pictures

Thank you one and all for your helpful suggestions. They were very much
appreciated by me.

Now if I can just figure a way to synchronize Outlook Express' email on my
desktop with my laptop. And yes I know there is a way to do this in
Outlook, but I'm attempting to do this with Express.
--
Many Thanks,

Peter Sale
Santa Monica, CA USA
To email me, just pull 'my-leg.'

===
"Keith Miller" wrote ...
Cquirke's post made me realize you can use a folder shortcut -- you only
need to go the CLSID/namespace route if you want to add the folder to My
Computer, but you want it under desktop.

So here's the easy instructions:

Open one explorer window to My Documents and open a second by right-clicking
the Start button and selecting 'Open'.

Right-click & drag the My Pictures folder from My Documents to the Start
Menu folder. Select 'Create Shortcut here' when you release the mouse
button.

Verify you've created the proper type of shortcut by viewing its properties.
A folder shortcut has only a 'general' tab listing the type as 'folder' and
displaying the target path.

Cut & paste or drag & drop the new shortcut onto the desktop.

Keith
===
...
You can use the info here:

http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/ui_shell.html

Cut and paste the reg file test found near the end of the page. Edit the
values to suit your needs.

Keith