DOCUMENTS FOLDERS?

  • Thread starter Thread starter BOB
  • Start date Start date
B

BOB

New to XP and don't understand the subject folders Have two accounts, one
for myself and one for wife.
Thought this was real neat but now discover that I have at least 3 documents
folders;'

C:\documents
C:\Documents & Settings\all users
C:\Documents & Settings\me
C:\Documents & Settings \wife

A quick look tells me that all these folders contain duplicates and some
contain 4 -5 copies of some files.
What gives? what have I done wrong? Is this right?

TIA
B
 
Delete the file under your user, it won't really delete just won't be
visible for you.

Having the separate profiles for you and your wife is good. That way
you're desktop, favorites, my documents are all user specific. If
you both are admin you can view what is in the other profile folders,
but I doubt you have no worries about that since she is your wife.
 
BOB said:
New to XP and don't understand the subject folders Have two accounts,
one for myself and one for wife.
Thought this was real neat but now discover that I have at least 3
documents folders;'

C:\documents
C:\Documents & Settings\all users
C:\Documents & Settings\me
C:\Documents & Settings \wife

A quick look tells me that all these folders contain duplicates and
some contain 4 -5 copies of some files.
What gives? what have I done wrong? Is this right?

TIA
B
Click to expand...

DO NOT delete any folders under "your user" as mistakenly posted by John
Anderson! if you do you will lose all the data in your User!

All those folders are indeed correct, apart from the "C:\documents" which is
not a default XP folder. It must have been created by the vendor of your
machine if you didn't do it. Have a look and see what is in it.
 
I ment to say if you delete the file (Such as the sample music folder
or what ever) it will delete it for all users.

Sorry didn't really come out the way I wanted it to.
 
: New to XP and don't understand the subject folders Have two
accounts, one
: for myself and one for wife.
: Thought this was real neat but now discover that I have at
least 3 documents
: folders;'
:
: C:\documents
: C:\Documents & Settings\all users
: C:\Documents & Settings\me
: C:\Documents & Settings \wife
:
: A quick look tells me that all these folders contain duplicates
and some
: contain 4 -5 copies of some files.
: What gives? what have I done wrong? Is this right?
:
: TIA
: B

Dunno why all the off-hand responses, but : It has to do with
XPs file sharing setup. XP was created to be a multi-user
system. You, your wife, or other (all) users could each have
access to the file for your own purposes that way. A little
experimentation will show you that they aren't "actually"
separate files: They are actually little shortcut indicators to
the actual file, which is actually located in the folder of
whoever created it. Also, you or your wife can create files
which the other cannot access, things like that. Or you can give
your wife read-only butr no write permissions, and so on.
Check Help for Accounts; lots of decend info there. Once
you're read thru that, you'll be able to google for more accurate
answers. I've done a pretty lousy job of explaining this, but
the Help will assist you a lot more.

HTH,

Pop

:
:
 
Jon said:
I ment to say if you delete the file (Such as the sample music folder
or what ever) it will delete it for all users.

Sorry didn't really come out the way I wanted it to.
Click to expand...

You mean in the ALL USERS folders then.
 
Sorry, turns out I don't really have it. From your response, I believe I
should have 3 Documents folders; : C:\Documents & Settings\all users,
C:\Documents & Settings\me, and C:\Documents & Settings \wife. Is this
correct? If yes how do I get rid of the C:\documents folder?

Thanks again
B
 
You DON'T get rid of the c:/documents and settings folder. If you do, you will lose ALL users documents folders and whatever is in them. Why do you want to get rid of this folder anyway?
 
I was referring to the C:\documents folder not the c:/documents and settings
folder. My reason for wanting to get rid of it was I have four documents
folders; C:\documents, C:\Documents & Settings\all users, C:\Documents &
Settings\me, and C:\Documents & Settings \wife seams a little redundant to
me? As I stated in original post I am new to XP. Help
me out here, how many and which documents folders should I have? Thank
you



You DON'T get rid of the c:/documents and settings folder. If you do, you
will lose ALL users documents folders and whatever is in them. Why do you
want to get rid of this folder anyway?
 
BOB said:
I was referring to the C:\documents folder not the c:/documents and
settings folder. My reason for wanting to get rid of it was I have
four documents folders; C:\documents, C:\Documents & Settings\all
users, C:\Documents & Settings\me, and C:\Documents & Settings \wife
seams a little redundant to me? As I stated in original post I am new
to XP. Help me out here, how many and which documents folders should I
have? Thank you
Click to expand...

You should have folders for both your Users and All Users in C:\Documents
and Settings\.
The folder C:\Documents is NOT a default Windows XP folder and has been
created by someone. Have a look and see what is in there. if nothing, delete
it! If there IS something in ther, then see what it is.
 
I was referring to the C:\documents folder not the c:/documents and settings
folder. My reason for wanting to get rid of it was I have four documents
folders; C:\documents, C:\Documents & Settings\all users, C:\Documents &
Settings\me, and C:\Documents & Settings \wife seams a little redundant to
me? As I stated in original post I am new to XP. Help
me out here, how many and which documents folders should I have? Thank
you
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that what Windows Explorer shows in My Documents for each user
are composite views. It also places access to this view in several places
within Explorer. These are not multiple folders/files, they are multiple
representations. Each view is the user's own personal documents and the
contents of shared documents. Putting aside these virtual views for now...

Default physical location for each user's document folders view is:
\Documents and Settings\<their account>\My Documents\
\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents

C:\Documents was likely user created or a leftover if this system was
upgraded from an older version of Windows.

If you don't want to use the "per user" structure provided by XP, you could
redirect each user's "My Documents" to a common folder such as
C:\Documents. To do this, log on to a user's account. Right click their My
Documents shortcut and select Properties. On the window that appears,
you'll see the Move button and Target location. Either use Move or type in
the desired location.

After "moving" and redirecting My Documents, there will still be a physical
Documents folder under the user's name in Documents and Settings. It's an
empty folder and a system folder so just ignore it rather than deleting it.

Also after doing this redirect, whenever you use the My Documents shortcut,
it will open the folder where everything has been redirected to. Especially
handy when you're using a program that defaults to saving in "My Documents"
as you won't have to redirect the dialog to your preferred documents folder
- Windows will do it for you instead.

Leave the Document folder all All Users alone. Don't use it if you don't
need/want it but leave it in place. Some program somewhere that you might
use someday may expect this default system folder to be there. Better to
have an empty/near empty folder laying around than to have that program
fail in some way because it can't find this expected object.
 
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