Windows XP: Documents and Settings

cowmumble wrote on 5/29/2004, 11:34 PM
I recently upgraded to Windows XP Pro and I'm annoyed by the long directories with Documents & Settings when adding my files in Vegas. (Guess I've been used to Windows 98)

I would set up Vegas folders outside of My Documents on my C-Drive but this is where everything wants to default to.

it usually looks like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\Cowmumble\\My Documents\My Projects\Vegas Projects\Daily\etc...

That's a long path! Can I place My Documents outside of (Documents & Settings) to shorten the path?

Comments

Caruso wrote on 5/30/2004, 2:02 AM
Of course. It's not that different than '98 once you get used to it. I never put anything in 'documents and settings' and wonder what someone might have been thinking when they came up with that one.

Just right click on the start button, then left click explore to navigate to your C drive or anyother drive on your system. Left click on the drive name/letter then right click in the file list and left click on 'New' select 'Folder' and give it a name (long or short) that makes sense to you. When capturing or rendering or saving veg files, simply point vegas to that folder (or another one that you can create at the time).

IMO, those pre-named folders is a silly attempt by MS to make things so "automatic" that the automation gets in the way - as though the "average" Windows user won't want to know about creating or naming folders and needs MS to organize his/her computer for him/her.

It's silly, but a minor inconvenience.

Caruso
Chienworks wrote on 5/30/2004, 4:43 AM
Exactly. I just posted a rant about that in the Movie Studio forum. I wish i could just expunge the whole silly "my documents" thing right off my computer completely.
Orcatek wrote on 5/30/2004, 6:30 AM
Which files are going to my docs?

I just went into options (in Vegas) and set my defaults to folders I wanted everything to end up in.
rmack350 wrote on 5/30/2004, 4:42 PM
There are reasons to have these folders-but I have to admit that it really screws up the win98/OS9 users. It also screwed me up coming from Linux.

Microsoft made an attempt to create a multiuser system, complete with file ownership and permissions. A little like a Unix system.

Now, if it were a 'nix system then this would be a security feature. Since it's an MS system it's a kludge.

Here are the reasons to arrange a system like this:

-Each user's files go into one place. This should make them easy to find and easy to back up.
-Users get custom permission levels. This means if a hacker hijacks their account then the hacker also only gets those permissions
-Programmers have predicable places to put an individual's config files, media files, etc.

Of course it doesn't work because single users usually just run as administrators and because MS insists that user directories MUST go into the root drive. In Linux I'd always put the user's home directories into their own partition. That way, if I want to refomat the system partition, the user files stay safe.

With my first two XP systems I went to great lengths to move my user directory to the D: drive. It almost works but many programs insist on writting setup files to the c: drive in a parallell "mydocuments" folder.

Upshot is, leave that folder alone on the C: drive, change Vegas prefs as much as possible to write to other locations, and then put up with it from there-on out. It's an awkward kludge by Microsoft. Probably a collision of programmers with a mandate to implement "Unix like" security and marketing people with a mandate to screw things up royally.

Rob Mack
johnmeyer wrote on 5/30/2004, 4:49 PM
O.K., here's how you handle this. It is quite simple, and I think this will do exactly what you want.

Download Microsoft's "Powertoys for Windows XP" at this location:

Powertoys

Install and run the "TweakUI" program that is part of this package.

In this program, navigate to the "My Computer" setting, and click on the "+" sign to expand it. Then, click on "Special Folders." Find the Windows designated folder that you would like to relocate to another place. In this case, that would be the "My Documents" folder. Click on the Change Location button, and you can now put this folder anywhere. For instance, moved it to a folder called "D:\Documents". Not only does this give me a nice short path (the problem you are trying to solve), but it puts it on a different drive letter, which keeps my C: drive completely free of any of my user data, and therefore makes it easy to back up. Basically, once I get my computer programs working, I can do a disk image backup of the C: drive, and never have to back it up again (unless I add programs or update Windows, which I try to do as seldom as possible). I can then back up my D: drive every day or two, and have all of my data files backed up.

I hope this helps!
Vegas - The Big Gamble wrote on 5/30/2004, 6:06 PM
Great!! That's very useful to know - and makes a lot of sense (especially about getting it off the C drive!)

Thanks!
MJhig wrote on 5/30/2004, 6:32 PM
While I do have TweakUI and I don't have access to my XP machine now so I'm going on memory from this 98 machine. I believe you don't need TweakUI to move your My Documents, My Pictures, My Music folders. I believe simply by clicking the "Move Folder" link in the left pane if you open the folder from the Start menu you can accomplish this..

I also moved the default storage for all OE data off the system drive so if I ever have to reinstall the OS all my personal data is on another partition.

MJ
johnmeyer wrote on 5/30/2004, 7:35 PM
I believe simply by clicking the "Move Folder" link in the left pane if you open the folder from the Start menu you can accomplish this..

Looks like that will work too, and without installing any extra software. Good idea.
rmack350 wrote on 5/30/2004, 9:12 PM
Yes, moving "my documents" should work out fine. Just remember that you still have a home directory in "C:\Documents and Settings". I've found that moving that (which is what I did when I first set my XP systems up) doesn't work out so well.

Case in point. Adobe photoshop seems to write about half of it's config files into my home directory on "D:\Rob" The other half go into a home directory at "C:\Documents and Settings\Rob" This directory was recreated automatically somewhere along the line. So now sometimes Pshop looks in one place or the other for the config files. Oft times Pshop 6.0 just resets my workspace to defaults. Annoying.

Anyway, yeah, you can move your "My Documents" folder but there's lots of important stuff that gets saved to the home directory on C:.

So watch out.

Rob Mack