Explorer Shortcuts and Address Bar

  • Thread starter Thread starter Fred Taylor
  • Start date Start date
F

Fred Taylor

Whenever I navigate to a folder using a shortcut, the path displayed in the
address bar does not show the full physical path of the folder. The path of
the folder shows as relative to the location of the shortcut itself. For
example:

Suppose the real path is: c:\rootfolder\subfolder\targetfolder\ and I create
a shortcut named "Fred" on my desktop that points to this folder. If I
double-click the shortcut, an Explorer window opens up with the address bar
folder displayed as:

c:\Users\<username>\Desktop\Fred\

WTF? Is there a way to have it display the full physical path of the folder?
This is another one of the major annoyances of Vista for me. Often times I
need navigate up to the parent folder from "targetfolder", and instead of
going to "subfolder" it goes to the desktop folder.
 
I don't know if there's a way to have it happen automatically. But you can
always click the little icon at the left side of the Address bar to change
to the full path.

For me, it seems the name to the left of the shortcut name in the Address
bar is the real parent folder. For example, if I click WebDev (a folder
shorcut on my desktop), the folder opens and I see Computer > Vdocs (E:) >
indexed > WebDev in the Address bar, which is the actual path to the folder.
So I just click Indexed to get to its actual parent folder. I don't think I
chose anything special to make it work that way.
 
vizualbod

You can press ALT+UP ARROW to get to the parent folder.

I actually felt the same way, old habits die hard.

Once the initial shock was over, I found that bread crumbs work very well. I
like the idea of being able to return to a previous folder that may be
several steps back from whatever folder I'm current in, with a single click.
Also, there is a small arrow wedged in between the Forward button and the
Path bar that gives you a way to go back to any previous place, in the
current session. You can also get the full path in the address bar by simply
clicking an empty spot there and return to the bread crumb view by hitting
escape or clicking anywhere in the current folder.
 
You've got a Folder Shortcut rather than a Shortcut to a folder.

Folder Shortcuts are the OS equivalent of NTFS junction points, they create
a second path in the namespace to the folder. The advantage is that they
behave more like real folders -- they sort with folders & will cascade on a
toolbar.

Right-click on the Desktop & select New -> Shortcut, then browse to your
desired target. This will create a Shortcut to a folder (.lnk file) that
will open your target folder and will show it's original path in the
breadcrumb bar & allow you to easily navigate to its parent folder.
 
We're not all in the forum you are in. Therefore there is no "above".
I see no post from "Fred Taylor".
 
Hi, vizualbod - and Bob.

No need to get into a fuss here. Just realize what is happening when a
thread from a forum like Vistaheads gets relayed - PARTIALLY - to Microsoft
Communities, also known as discussion groups, but really Usenet newsgroups
hosted by Microsoft on their public news servers.

Warning - the following includes both information and a rant!

I don't understand the whole process, but at least part of it is that
Vistaheads "slurps" posts from the MS server and relays them to the
Vistaheads forum - and presents them as though they started there. That MAY
be what happened to Fred Taylor's post. Or Fred may have posted originally
to Vistaheads, but his post might never have appeared here in the MS
newsgroup, where I am reading this thread. Since vizualbod is reading
Vistaheads, he sees Fred's post - and assumes that everybody sees it. But,
since Bob and Dave - and I - are reading in MS newsgroups, all we see is
vizualbod's post. His Subject line starts with "Re:", but there is no OP
that we can see. So we have no idea who Fred Taylor is or what was said in
his OP or in any other message in the thread so far.

There are MANY such disembodied threads here in the MS newsgroups. :>( We
usually can recognize them by:

1. The sender's address domain is something like vizualbod's:
@no-mx.forums.vistaheads.com

2. The headers for the sender's post will include a couple of lines like:
User-Agent: vBulletin USENET gateway
X-Newsreader: vBulletin USENET gateway

3. The Subject line often - but not always - starts with Re:, but there
is no original post for that Subject.

4. The message starts with something like, "I have exactly the same
problem...", but we readers in the MS newsgroup have NO idea what the "same
problem" might have been. We cannot see the thread in the Forum where the
sender THINKS he is posting, and he does not quote any part of the thread
because he thinks that would be redundant and not necessary.

And, related to all the above...

5. This "slurping" process of relaying posts and replies back and forth
between those forums and the MS servers results in messages that are delayed
or out of sequence or simply lost between the two servers. Helpers here or
on the forum may not be able to see responses from other helpers, so we have
no idea what has been suggested or tried already. When we ask for more info
or suggest something already posted on the other site, the OP gets
frustrated or angry or both - and even abusive, sometimes. :>(


I've mentioned this situation in some feedback to Microsoft, but the
response is not encouraging. The problem seems to be in the wide-open
nature of Usenet itself. Anybody with a modem can access these MS public
news servers and post anything - and that includes operators of Vistaheads
and other such forums. And the forum operators can freely slurp our posts
from here and present them on their own forums as though the content
originated there. They can relay the entire conversation back to MS, or
only selected - or random - parts of it.

Nobody appointed me, but I THINK that I speak for other helpers here when I
say that I'm happy to have my advice (at least the good parts) disseminated
far and wide to help as many users as possible. (Those forums perform a
useful function, but I'm not happy to realize that many forum operators
generate ad revenue from comments that I've posted freely.) But when the
threads get disjointed - like this one was, even before my digression - then
the communication gets garbled and the advice gets distorted. And we are
NOT happy about that!

Maybe someone can figure out how to continue delivering useful advice
through those forums without the distortion that we see with the current
process.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)
 
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