Mitch Tulloch's Blog

Simplifying User Profiles

User profiles on Windows computers can be complex structures that have a lot of folders in them, especially if you install applications that create their own profile folders. For example, if you install Microsoft Virtual PC on Windows XP, you'll get a My Virtual Machines folder added to your profile. And if you install Microsoft Office Communicator, you'll get another folder added to your profile that's named My Received Files. And if you install Microsoft Visio, you'll get a My Shapes folder added to your profile.

This can be particularly annoying on Windows XP as all these additional profile folders are subfolders under My Documents. So when you open My Documents to look for a document, you see all these additional folders that contain pictures, music, videos, virtual machines, downloaded files, and so on. Sounds like the junk drawer in my kitchen—open it and you'll find everything from tools to candy bar wrappers, which makes it hard to find the right tool (or candy bar) when you need it.

If you don't like all these new folders though, there's something you can do about it—just delete them. Although these folders are "special" or "well-known" and some of them have unique icons when you display them in Windows Explorer, they're really just like any other folders on your hard drive, and when you delete them nothing will break. At the very worst, if you install some new application that needs one of these folders, it's likely that the missing folder will simply get re-created.

What if you change your mind later and wish you hadn't deleted your My Pictures folder or some other special folder? Simply create a new folder with the exact same name as the original.

Or if you don't want to delete your special folders, you could rename them so they show up at the bottom of your My Documents folder. Doing this will allow you to keep these folders while making it easier to browse My Documents. For example, you could rename My Pictures to zMy Pictures. The cool thing is, if you do this and then open Paint and try to save a bitmap file, the file will automatically save in zMy Pictures. In other words, Windows applications are smart enough to follow shell folders around even when you rename them.

One thing to note though: If you're running Windows Defender and you rename one of your special folders, Defender will try and get your attention by saying that someone or something is trying to modify a shell folder. You can simply permit the action however and Defender won't warn you again of what it thinks is suspicious activity—mucking around with the shell.

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