Shared Documents Folder

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I am setting up my computer for family use. I have a 70Gb C: drive with the
system files and programs etc and a second drive D: for data.

I have redirected all My documents folders to the D: drive successfully,
however there is a large amount of music & photos etc that require to be
shared.

This data is far too large to stoe on the C: drive under Shared Documents,
so I have tried to redirect this folder to D: as has been done with the user
my documents folders. This has not been possible so far.

My question then is how can the C:\Documents & settings\All Users\Documents
folder be re-located to my second drive?
 
To redirect the Shared Documents folder, you need to alter the path in the
registry. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe. Navigate to the following
branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right-pane, double-click "Common Documents" and set its path. (for
example.. D:\SharedDocs)

Close Regedit.exe

Create the destination folder and move the files there.

Logoff and login back

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I am setting up my computer for family use. I have a 70Gb C: drive with the
system files and programs etc and a second drive D: for data.

I have redirected all My documents folders to the D: drive successfully,
however there is a large amount of music & photos etc that require to be
shared.

This data is far too large to stoe on the C: drive under Shared Documents,
so I have tried to redirect this folder to D: as has been done with the user
my documents folders. This has not been possible so far.

My question then is how can the C:\Documents & settings\All Users\Documents
folder be re-located to my second drive?
 
Thanks. That sorts the basic issue out, however there is a problem.

I have created a folder on D: called 'shared' and sub folders in that for
Music, Pictures & Video.

Following your instructions I have amended the registry and this now appears
as the shared folder.

I have then deleted the original 'documents' folder in Docs & Settings\All
Users.

The problem arises when Media player 11 is started. It recreates the
original folder as the shared music folder. How can I stop this happening and
make media player accept where the new Shared folder is?

It is not a major problem as I know I can change the monitored folders in
the media player options, however it is very annoying!

Any suggestions?

Would I have been beter off moving the whole Documents & Settings Folder to
the D: Drive or is this not possible?

Regards
 
To redirect the Shared Music, Shared Pictures and Shared Video folder along
with Shared Documents, try this: (from Keith Miller)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right-pane:

a.. Create a REG_SZ named CommonMusic and set it's path
b.. Create a REG_SZ named CommonPictures and set it's path
c.. Create a REG_SZ named CommonVideo and set it's path
Note: No space in between for these words (CommonVideo, CommonMusic,
CommonVideo). One space in between (Common Documents)

Logoff and login back.


--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Thanks. That sorts the basic issue out, however there is a problem.

I have created a folder on D: called 'shared' and sub folders in that for
Music, Pictures & Video.

Following your instructions I have amended the registry and this now appears
as the shared folder.

I have then deleted the original 'documents' folder in Docs & Settings\All
Users.

The problem arises when Media player 11 is started. It recreates the
original folder as the shared music folder. How can I stop this happening
and
make media player accept where the new Shared folder is?

It is not a major problem as I know I can change the monitored folders in
the media player options, however it is very annoying!

Any suggestions?

Would I have been beter off moving the whole Documents & Settings Folder to
the D: Drive or is this not possible?

Regards

Ramesh said:
To redirect the Shared Documents folder, you need to alter the path in the
registry. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe. Navigate to the following
branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right-pane, double-click "Common Documents" and set its path. (for
example.. D:\SharedDocs)

Close Regedit.exe

Create the destination folder and move the files there.

Logoff and login back

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I am setting up my computer for family use. I have a 70Gb C: drive with
the
system files and programs etc and a second drive D: for data.

I have redirected all My documents folders to the D: drive successfully,
however there is a large amount of music & photos etc that require to be
shared.

This data is far too large to stoe on the C: drive under Shared Documents,
so I have tried to redirect this folder to D: as has been done with the
user
my documents folders. This has not been possible so far.

My question then is how can the C:\Documents & settings\All
Users\Documents
folder be re-located to my second drive?
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for that. Before I do this can I clear somethings up please.

I also asked whether it was possible to simply move/redirect the entire
Documents & Settings folder to the D: drive. If so how is this done?

As to your instructions, do these keys already exist or do they need
creating? I have also seen some similar keys under;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ Shell Folders

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ MediaPlayer \ Preferences

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ DocFolderPaths

Are these to be left alone, or are these they keys you are referring to, and
if so they just require modifying?

Lastly, will this customisation be recognised by all software installed on
the pc. I have adobe, microsoft & roxio products installed?

Hope you can answer all these questions easily, sorry it seems so many for
one post, but they are really relating to my original post.

Oh, something I forgot about, though I don't know if it makes any
difference, I am running XP MCE 2005

THanks and best regards

Ramesh said:
To redirect the Shared Music, Shared Pictures and Shared Video folder along
with Shared Documents, try this: (from Keith Miller)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right-pane:

a.. Create a REG_SZ named CommonMusic and set it's path
b.. Create a REG_SZ named CommonPictures and set it's path
c.. Create a REG_SZ named CommonVideo and set it's path
Note: No space in between for these words (CommonVideo, CommonMusic,
CommonVideo). One space in between (Common Documents)

Logoff and login back.


--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Thanks. That sorts the basic issue out, however there is a problem.

I have created a folder on D: called 'shared' and sub folders in that for
Music, Pictures & Video.

Following your instructions I have amended the registry and this now appears
as the shared folder.

I have then deleted the original 'documents' folder in Docs & Settings\All
Users.

The problem arises when Media player 11 is started. It recreates the
original folder as the shared music folder. How can I stop this happening
and
make media player accept where the new Shared folder is?

It is not a major problem as I know I can change the monitored folders in
the media player options, however it is very annoying!

Any suggestions?

Would I have been beter off moving the whole Documents & Settings Folder to
the D: Drive or is this not possible?

Regards

Ramesh said:
To redirect the Shared Documents folder, you need to alter the path in the
registry. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe. Navigate to the following
branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right-pane, double-click "Common Documents" and set its path. (for
example.. D:\SharedDocs)

Close Regedit.exe

Create the destination folder and move the files there.

Logoff and login back

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I am setting up my computer for family use. I have a 70Gb C: drive with
the
system files and programs etc and a second drive D: for data.

I have redirected all My documents folders to the D: drive successfully,
however there is a large amount of music & photos etc that require to be
shared.

This data is far too large to stoe on the C: drive under Shared Documents,
so I have tried to redirect this folder to D: as has been done with the
user
my documents folders. This has not been possible so far.

My question then is how can the C:\Documents & settings\All
Users\Documents
folder be re-located to my second drive?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Documents & Settings folder to the D: drive

This has to be done during an unattended installation. For alternate method,
see MS-KB article 314843
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314843)

The three keys need no modificiation. Leave them alone.

The customization will be recognized by most of the moden software, which
uses the CSIDL values to get the path of a special folder. More info on
CSIDL is available here.
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...llcc/platform/shell/reference/enums/csidl.asp)

Hope WMP respects the setting.

Don't have and MCE system to test, but should work fine.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Thanks for that. Before I do this can I clear somethings up please.

I also asked whether it was possible to simply move/redirect the entire
Documents & Settings folder to the D: drive. If so how is this done?

As to your instructions, do these keys already exist or do they need
creating? I have also seen some similar keys under;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ Shell Folders

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ MediaPlayer \ Preferences

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ DocFolderPaths

Are these to be left alone, or are these they keys you are referring to, and
if so they just require modifying?

Lastly, will this customisation be recognised by all software installed on
the pc. I have adobe, microsoft & roxio products installed?

Hope you can answer all these questions easily, sorry it seems so many for
one post, but they are really relating to my original post.

Oh, something I forgot about, though I don't know if it makes any
difference, I am running XP MCE 2005

THanks and best regards
 
Many thanks, looks like I've got some reading to do aswell as editing te
registry
Regards

Ramesh said:
This has to be done during an unattended installation. For alternate method,
see MS-KB article 314843
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314843)

The three keys need no modificiation. Leave them alone.

The customization will be recognized by most of the moden software, which
uses the CSIDL values to get the path of a special folder. More info on
CSIDL is available here.
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...llcc/platform/shell/reference/enums/csidl.asp)

Hope WMP respects the setting.

Don't have and MCE system to test, but should work fine.

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Thanks for that. Before I do this can I clear somethings up please.

I also asked whether it was possible to simply move/redirect the entire
Documents & Settings folder to the D: drive. If so how is this done?

As to your instructions, do these keys already exist or do they need
creating? I have also seen some similar keys under;

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ Shell Folders

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ MediaPlayer \ Preferences

and

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ DocFolderPaths

Are these to be left alone, or are these they keys you are referring to, and
if so they just require modifying?

Lastly, will this customisation be recognised by all software installed on
the pc. I have adobe, microsoft & roxio products installed?

Hope you can answer all these questions easily, sorry it seems so many for
one post, but they are really relating to my original post.

Oh, something I forgot about, though I don't know if it makes any
difference, I am running XP MCE 2005

THanks and best regards

Ramesh said:
To redirect the Shared Music, Shared Pictures and Shared Video folder
along
with Shared Documents, try this: (from Keith Miller)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ User Shell Folders
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
You're welcome!

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


Many thanks, looks like I've got some reading to do aswell as editing te
registry
Regards

:
 
Hi Ramesh -

You helped me with this same issue last year on another computer, and I'm
trying to do the same thing on a new computer and having trouble.

I followed your instructions and renamed common documents to:
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%F:\Documents

But the location doesn't show as a Shared Documents shortcut under my
computer. In the past it shows up next to My Documents. How can I get that
shortcut back?

Thanks for your help,
George
 
Hi George,

See if this helps:

[Winhelponline.com] "Shared Documents" folder renamed to "Documents"?:
http://www.winhelponline.com/articl...quot-folder-renamed-to-quotDocumentsquot.html

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


in message Hi Ramesh -

You helped me with this same issue last year on another computer, and I'm
trying to do the same thing on a new computer and having trouble.

I followed your instructions and renamed common documents to:
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%F:\Documents

But the location doesn't show as a Shared Documents shortcut under my
computer. In the past it shows up next to My Documents. How can I get that
shortcut back?

Thanks for your help,
George
 
Thanks Ramesh -

I looked and I have a desktop.ini file in the F:\docments folder that has
the contents:
[.ShellClassInfo]
[email protected],-21785
[FileSharingInformation]
ShortcutName=Shared Documents on NOTEPAD

Still I don't see a shortcut to Shared Documents under My Computer.

Any further suggestions?

Thanks,
George


Ramesh said:
Hi George,

See if this helps:

[Winhelponline.com] "Shared Documents" folder renamed to "Documents"?:
http://www.winhelponline.com/articl...quot-folder-renamed-to-quotDocumentsquot.html

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


in message Hi Ramesh -

You helped me with this same issue last year on another computer, and I'm
trying to do the same thing on a new computer and having trouble.

I followed your instructions and renamed common documents to:
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%F:\Documents

But the location doesn't show as a Shared Documents shortcut under my
computer. In the past it shows up next to My Documents. How can I get that
shortcut back?

Thanks for your help,
George


Ramesh said:
To redirect the Shared Documents folder, you need to alter the path in the
registry. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe. Navigate to the following
branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right-pane, double-click "Common Documents" and set its path. (for
example.. D:\SharedDocs)

Close Regedit.exe

Create the destination folder and move the files there.

Logoff and login back

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I am setting up my computer for family use. I have a 70Gb C: drive with
the
system files and programs etc and a second drive D: for data.

I have redirected all My documents folders to the D: drive successfully,
however there is a large amount of music & photos etc that require to be
shared.

This data is far too large to stoe on the C: drive under Shared Documents,
so I have tried to redirect this folder to D: as has been done with the
user
my documents folders. This has not been possible so far.

My question then is how can the C:\Documents & settings\All
Users\Documents
folder be re-located to my second drive?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Hope that path is a typo that you wrote:

%ALLUSERSPROFILE%F:\Documents

That breaks out to

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\F:\Documents

Is that what you wanted?

It should be set as:

F:\Documents

George said:
Hi Ramesh -

You helped me with this same issue last year on another computer, and I'm
trying to do the same thing on a new computer and having trouble.

I followed your instructions and renamed common documents to:
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%F:\Documents

But the location doesn't show as a Shared Documents shortcut under my
computer. In the past it shows up next to My Documents. How can I get that
shortcut back?

Thanks for your help,
George


Ramesh said:
To redirect the Shared Documents folder, you need to alter the path in
the
registry. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe. Navigate to the
following
branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right-pane, double-click "Common Documents" and set its path. (for
example.. D:\SharedDocs)

Close Regedit.exe

Create the destination folder and move the files there.

Logoff and login back

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I am setting up my computer for family use. I have a 70Gb C: drive with
the
system files and programs etc and a second drive D: for data.

I have redirected all My documents folders to the D: drive successfully,
however there is a large amount of music & photos etc that require to be
shared.

This data is far too large to stoe on the C: drive under Shared
Documents,
so I have tried to redirect this folder to D: as has been done with the
user
my documents folders. This has not been possible so far.

My question then is how can the C:\Documents & settings\All
Users\Documents
folder be re-located to my second drive?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Larry -

Thank you for pointing that out, that was my problem and I missed it for
looking at it too much.

Eveything now is as I expected it to be.

Thanks a lot for your help.
George

Larry Gardner said:
Hope that path is a typo that you wrote:

%ALLUSERSPROFILE%F:\Documents

That breaks out to

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\F:\Documents

Is that what you wanted?

It should be set as:

F:\Documents

George said:
Hi Ramesh -

You helped me with this same issue last year on another computer, and I'm
trying to do the same thing on a new computer and having trouble.

I followed your instructions and renamed common documents to:
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%F:\Documents

But the location doesn't show as a Shared Documents shortcut under my
computer. In the past it shows up next to My Documents. How can I get that
shortcut back?

Thanks for your help,
George


Ramesh said:
To redirect the Shared Documents folder, you need to alter the path in
the
registry. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe. Navigate to the
following
branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right-pane, double-click "Common Documents" and set its path. (for
example.. D:\SharedDocs)

Close Regedit.exe

Create the destination folder and move the files there.

Logoff and login back

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I am setting up my computer for family use. I have a 70Gb C: drive with
the
system files and programs etc and a second drive D: for data.

I have redirected all My documents folders to the D: drive successfully,
however there is a large amount of music & photos etc that require to be
shared.

This data is far too large to stoe on the C: drive under Shared
Documents,
so I have tried to redirect this folder to D: as has been done with the
user
my documents folders. This has not been possible so far.

My question then is how can the C:\Documents & settings\All
Users\Documents
folder be re-located to my second drive?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I've had problems with this many times. Basically it's an issue with every
new build PC. It's a major design flaw in XP as I.M.H.O.

FIRST, I would like to mention to the MS people that it should be made
possible to arrange this from within the system. Just like with My Documents.
And no, the tool XP Tweak doesn't do a proper job in redefining Shared
Documents !

It is a serious design error to combine the My Document (that is secure DATA
!) folders together with all the crap in Temp etc. (that is deletable !!!).

In order to keep the system running lean & clean it is a goof idea to keep
the C: disk small (fast defrag). Large (shared) data as MP'3 and MPG's should
be stored on a separate disk D: (or partition).

SECOND. One should be very precise in moving the Shared Documents to another
place. The indication is hidden away in the registry at various places (could
explain why Media Player still looks at the wrong place ?). Check the
articles very carefully.

Also take care of the fact that the names the user sees in explorer for
these folders are not the same as the system uses (in the registry). For
example, it is Shared Documents in the XP shell but it is My Documents on the
disk. Like the folder form another user. It is My document's on the disk (and
registry) but it shows like <User-X>'s Documents. These names are hidden in
the shell32.dll and referred to in the hidden INI files in the folders.

I usually get rid of these XP names by deleting the INI files. This has
drawbacks for the user's interface but it makes moving them around a save
operation.

Ousch ! Could write a white paper on this soon.


Ramesh said:
To redirect the Shared Documents folder, you need to alter the path in the
registry. Click Start, Run and type Regedit.exe. Navigate to the following
branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \
Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right-pane, double-click "Common Documents" and set its path. (for
example.. D:\SharedDocs)

Close Regedit.exe

Create the destination folder and move the files there.

Logoff and login back

--
Regards,

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
Windows® XP Troubleshooting http://www.winhelponline.com


I am setting up my computer for family use. I have a 70Gb C: drive with the
system files and programs etc and a second drive D: for data.

I have redirected all My documents folders to the D: drive successfully,
however there is a large amount of music & photos etc that require to be
shared.

This data is far too large to stoe on the C: drive under Shared Documents,
so I have tried to redirect this folder to D: as has been done with the user
my documents folders. This has not been possible so far.

My question then is how can the C:\Documents & settings\All Users\Documents
folder be re-located to my second drive?
Click to expand...
 
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