'My Documents' link always gets invalidated.

[oceanebelle]

I'm running Windows XP Pro XP3

and I'm having an issue where My 'My Documents' link is changed by some program to 'H:\My Documents'.

I can resolve this fine however, it always gets invalidated when I logoff/logon and restart.

Has anybody encountered this and is there a way to know which application does this change or is this some virus?

[mendhak]

Check msconfig and the registry to see if there is a script (wsf... bat... vbs) that's running, have a look at the code inside to see if it's changing it on startup.

[Siddharth Rout]

Hi Ocean

Check this key for me...

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

Where is it leading to???

Also It seems like your pc is using roaming profiles. Check this for me....

Under control panel, system, advanced, user profiles does it say they are local profiles or roaming profiles? If it says roaming, delete the profile off the server first then delete the local profile for the user. Have them log on again and it will rebuild their profile, hopefully as a local profile. (Caution: Save the users documents someplace else before you delete all copies of their profile)

Hope this helps...

[Lord Orwell]

how are you fixing it? my documents is one of the folders that the location is automatically tracked if you move it with a drag-drop.

[oceanebelle]

Hi Ocean

Check this key for me...

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

Where is it leading to???

Also It seems like your pc is using roaming profiles. Check this for me....

Under control panel, system, advanced, user profiles does it say they are local profiles or roaming profiles? If it says roaming, delete the profile off the server first then delete the local profile for the user. Have them log on again and it will rebuild their profile, hopefully as a local profile. (Caution: Save the users documents someplace else before you delete all copies of their profile)

Hope this helps...

All settings are using Local settings



HKEY_CURRENT_USER\...\Personal is set to c:\documents and settings\..\My documents

Do I need to look at other keys as well?

I couldn't find anything in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

[oceanebelle]

how are you fixing it? my documents is one of the folders that the location is automatically tracked if you move it with a drag-drop.

right click 'my documents' icon and move the link to the correct location.

[oceanebelle]

Check msconfig and the registry to see if there is a script (wsf... bat... vbs) that's running, have a look at the code inside to see if it's changing it on startup.

can I do regex searches on the registry?

nothing on msconfig.

edit: guess not.

[Siddharth Rout]

Ok, Navigate to

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell
Folders, value Personal

You will see that the value of Personal is

%USERPROFILE%\My Documents

Seems like your user profile is saved on H: and hence it is navigating back to h:

Simply edit that value and try again now...

Hope this helps...

[Lord Orwell]

right click 'my documents' icon and move the link to the correct location.

windows is funny about these files. I think you have to do an actual drag and drop or it creates a link. Not 100% on that one though.

[chris128]

windows is funny about these files. I think you have to do an actual drag and drop or it creates a link. Not 100% on that one though.

I think he means right clicking and going to properties (as that allows you to edit the target location that My Documents points to)

[Lord Orwell]

no i didn't. changing the shortcut doesn't change where windows wants to put it. That's stored in the registry. If you don't do the drag method, it doesn't automatically fix the registry location pointer. Therefore the next time you try to browse my documents from your start menu for example, windows will send you to the old location, creating a new folder where the old one was.

[chris128]

no i didn't. changing the shortcut doesn't change where windows wants to put it. That's stored in the registry. If you don't do the drag method, it doesn't automatically fix the registry location pointer. Therefore the next time you try to browse my documents from your start menu for example, windows will send you to the old location, creating a new folder where the old one was.

I didnt mean that was what you meant, I was saying it to you.

The My Documents icon is not a shortcut. If you change the target properties of the My Documents icon on your desktop or Start Menu it redirects your My Documents folder to that location no matter how you access it... I do this almost on a weekly basis at work when setting up new PCs etc so it definitely works.

[Lord Orwell]

I didnt mean that was what you meant, I was saying it to you.

The My Documents icon is not a shortcut. If you change the target properties of the My Documents icon on your desktop or Start Menu it redirects your My Documents folder to that location no matter how you access it... I do this almost on a weekly basis at work when setting up new PCs etc so it definitely works.

that's interesting. I will give that a shot myself. I am getting ready to move all my documents onto a common drive due to the number of OSes i have installed.