Moving "My Documents" System Folder

[Dave Baumann]

Does anyone know of a reliable method of moving "My Documents" off of the C: drive such that other applications can use it?

I'm about to turn my PC into more of a media centric thing, probably with Media Center - I want to share the media through various devices, including the XBOX 360, which means that I'm going to have to use "My Documents" for storage, probably, but I', loathe to lob these all on the C: with the OS install - I'd far rather have a large media partition on a separate drive.

 

[Colourless]

Using TweakUI you can change the system paths to whatever you want and after a reboot it will all be good.

 

[Martin Eddy]

Or the easier way is to right click the "My Documents" icon and go to properties and just change the location in there.

 

[BRiT]

A reliable way I use is within a file explorer, right-click the MY Documents folder then drag and drop it to its destination selecting "Move Here" from the popup menu. That will update all needed registry values as well as copy the contents over. Just make sure you logoff then on before trying this so as to be sure no program is currently having a lock on any file within there. One of the tweaks I do on install is move nearly everything off the C:\ partition.

 

[Martin Eddy]

I use nLite to install windows to c:/ ,documents to d:/ , and programs to e:/

 

[Slides]

I believe that if you just move the folder, windows will do the rest for you. Try it

 

[Richard]

I use nLite to install windows to c:/ ,documents to d:/ , and programs to e:/

I use a similar setup with nLite, except I leave programs on the c drive in "c:\Programs" and I only move the old documents and settings folder to "e:\Users".

I'm afraid Dave is not too keen on re-installing windows though.

 

[suryad]

Sweet next time I reinstall I am gonna give that nLite config a shot. It should be in one of the configuration screens right? Tweaks section maybe?

 

[digitalwanderer]

I'm afraid Dave is not too keen on re-installing windows though.

Who is anymore? It stopped being fun for me after 98se died.

 

[Tahir2]

Right Click on the My Documents folder and press delete. Voila moved to the Recycle Bin!

Maybe not .....

 

[Richard]

Who is anymore? It stopped being fun for me after 98se died.

Heh, with nLite, installing windows is fun again (and way faster too). My OS partition (which only has c:\programs and c:\os on it) is 8gb only which lets me reinstall windows quick and easy without disrupting the rest of my system and with the built-in nLite tweaks I can have windows setup the way I want it right from first boot and without user intervention. In fact, I'm just waiting for the next nLite version to do a fresh re-install.

Sweet next time I reinstall I am gonna give that nLite config a shot. It should be in one of the configuration screens right? Tweaks section maybe?

In the latest version of nLite to change the default "Program Files" location and name check the "Unattended Setup > General"; to change "Documents and Settings" location and name check the "Options > Profiles path".

 

[Sazar]

Does anyone know of a reliable method of moving "My Documents" off of the C: drive such that other applications can use it?

I'm about to turn my PC into more of a media centric thing, probably with Media Center - I want to share the media through various devices, including the XBOX 360, which means that I'm going to have to use "My Documents" for storage, probably, but I', loathe to lob these all on the C: with the OS install - I'd far rather have a large media partition on a separate drive.

Why not simply create a separate "media" folder on an alternate drive or partition?

This is essentially what I have done, allowing me to automatically save torrents, recorded shows in mpeg or avi format and all my mp3 files in one location (separate sub-folders).

This also allows me more flexibility in sharing my parent media folder over my wireless network between my notebooks.

A basic "Copy" or "Drag Drop" jobbie should get it done for you to move files from "My Docu`1" to the media folder.

 

[Sazar]

Does anyone know of a reliable method of moving "My Documents" off of the C: drive such that other applications can use it?

I'm about to turn my PC into more of a media centric thing, probably with Media Center - I want to share the media through various devices, including the XBOX 360, which means that I'm going to have to use "My Documents" for storage, probably, but I', loathe to lob these all on the C: with the OS install - I'd far rather have a large media partition on a separate drive.

Why not simply create a separate "media" folder on an alternate drive or partition?

This is essentially what I have done, allowing me to automatically save torrents, recorded shows in mpeg or avi format and all my mp3 files in one location (separate sub-folders).

This also allows me more flexibility in sharing my parent media folder over my wireless network between my notebooks.

A basic "Copy" or "Drag Drop" jobbie should get it done for you to move files from "My Docu`1" to the media folder.

Or if you absolutely must use My Documents, simply change the path like the others suggested.

 

[Blazkowicz]

yeah, I don't use and never used My Documents at all, as well as the My Pictures, My Crap etc.
if you want to share stuff, you only have to right click a directory and share it, that has always been as simple as that.

you also can tweak the Windows "Save as" dialog using TweakUI, so you get your directories on the left pannel rather than the useless "My recent documents", "Desktop", "My docs", etc.

 

[Diplo]

On Windows XP you can right-click the My Documents folder then choose > Properties then click the Target tab and then click the 'Move' button.