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Moving folder locations
Vista adds the useful capability of re-directing a folder to a different
location, e.g. C:\Users\Bob\Favorites to D:\Bob\Favorites. Use it to get
your data away from the OS, or gain concurency from the use of two
disks.
Do this:
Just drag your folder from where it is now onto the folder you want it
to be in, then on the drop select "Redirect Folder" in the context menu
where the choices previously were only "Copy" and "Move".
What happened:
Doing this will 1) move the folder and contents to the drop point, then
2) create a re-direct placeholder folder where the folder previously
lived. The file-system automatically knows when a placeholder folder is
accessed to traverse to the new location.
Now, if you've already tried moving a folder location in Vista you
probably haven't read this far because you're already trying "Do this"
and are looking in context menus. Why? Just search the internet for all
the problems everyone has moving folder locations and that will tell you
how insufficiently miserable the Vista implementation of this feature
is.
My experience:
1) Not all folders have the "location" tab in the properties dialog.
2) The way in which you access a folder determines if the "location"
tab is visible, i.e. Start->Username vs. Right-mouse->Start->explore to
Username. One shows the tab, the other doesn't.
3) The location tab button says "move <folder> to" - I put in <folder>
because it's on the property of the folder object I'm pushing the moving
button - but it's not the folder that gets moved. It's the contents of
the folder. Note that's the opposite of drag-and-drop. Easily to get
confused.
4) Once "move to" is pressed, the option of choosing to move the
folders is useless. That's why I'm re-directing the folder. And the
ensuing warning about having two folders if I choose to not to move the
folder's contents is additional confusion.
5) If you accidently use the "drag-and-drop" model and move the
re-directed folder's contents to the folder above where you intended,
use of the "Restore default location" button becomes bizarre. "Do you
want to move the contents"? NO,NO it was my error, I just want to undo.
There are other files at that level. "You may end up with two folders".
Where? Why? HELP!
6) Oh, and don't forget to create in the new location the folder you
want to re-direct. Be sure to check permissions on that created file,
too, or things like IE won't find the Favorites folder where you
bookmarked instructions on how to "redirect folders".
7) Try changing the location of "C:\Users\<user>\Searches" to
"D:\<user>". Oops, it should have been "D:\<user>\Searches". Undo by
"Restore Default Location" choosing to manually drag and drop the
"Searches" contents to "C:\Users\<user>\Searches". Now, Start->explore
and you may get the error dialog "Location is not available"
"C:\Users\<user>\Searches\Desktop". Note this message does not tell you
who is looking for "C:\Users\<user>\Searches\Desktop". It only tells
you something is looking for it. Remember "File is in use!"? Whose using
it? Gosh, forgot the procedure to delete a file was to reboot first.
Okay, lets create a folder "C:\Users\<user>\Searches\Desktop" just for
whomever seems to be looking for it. Now reboot. Notice your desktop
shortcuts have all disappeared. Take a deep breath, stand back, take
time to examine all three <user> folders. One's Start-><user>, the
second is C:\Users<user>, and the third is D:\<user>. What do you see?
Betcha can't guess. Nope, wrong. You've lost D:\<user>. It's no longer
there. Take a really long deep breath. Think about the name of a unique
folder you had in D:\<user>, ahhh, ".emacs". Now search the entire
system for ".emacs" hoping .... bygosh, there it is in "D:\Searches".
Holy cow, somewhere in all that the "D:\<user>" got renamed to
"D:\Searches". Stop...
Bottom Line:
BE PERPARED TO SPEND TEN TIMES MORE TIME RELOCATING FOLDERS THAN YOU
THINK POSSIBLE!
--
BobF
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