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This question is not about user folders, but rather the Public user folder on Windows 7.
How do you map folders such as Music, Pictures, Video to a different location.
If you right click, go to properties, and look at the location tab it's not editable on Windows 7.
Omar Shahine
Posted 2009-08-01T19:38:13.967
Reputation: 2 409
28
The solution posted by Ivo did not work for me. As Omar originally wrote, the textbox within the location tab was not mutable, and there were no browse or move buttons.
I found the following solution which worked for me:
Close all folder windows.
Open an elevated Command Prompt window by clicking Start, All Programs, Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
Click the Start button. Press and hold the CTRL and SHIFT keys, and right-click on an empty area in the Start menu. You’ll see a Popup menu containing the two options namely Exit Explorer and Properties. Choose "Exit Explorer". Your start menu and task bar will disappear.
Switch to the admin Command Prompt window
In the Command Prompt, type explorer.exe and press ENTER. This starts the Shell under elevated privileges.
Now you can open up the original public folders and should have full access to the location tab, including restore, move, and "find target" buttons.
Once you've done moving your public folders, log off and then log back in to return explorer to pre-elevated levels. This is an important security step.
For reference, the above is summarized from here: Move Button Missing From the Location Tab for Public Folders in Windows Vista
If the administrator account is enabled, simply log in as administrator and you should have full access to the location tab of public folders. The above mentioned solution may not work anyways in this case.
If you want to enable the administrator account, see: Enabling the administrator account in windows 7
Jason
Posted 2009-08-01T19:38:13.967
Reputation: 434
Ivo Flipse
Posted 2009-08-01T19:38:13.967
Reputation: 24 054
-1 since it does not work in general for public folders and it's bad manner to just post a link. – Scolytus – 2016-07-30T08:44:29.783
Worked for me on Windows 7, logged in as an Adminstrator. – Clay Nichols – 2011-01-07T14:51:15.833
This is for sure easier if your permissions allow you to edit the location box. But as Omar originally wrote, there are cases where it's not editable. – Jason – 2011-02-21T21:55:36.667
1
This link at Microsoft has some detailed instructions - I didn't find safe mode necessary just using an administrator-level command.
Dan
Posted 2009-08-01T19:38:13.967
Reputation: 871
link is broken. Do you remember the name of the article? – matt wilkie – 2014-02-21T00:28:29.317
@matt It was a MS Social/Forum website that had a number of links to different ways of accomplishing moving the entire %USERPROFILE% folder and redirecting it for future users. They are all available in Google cache, but in case that goes down, I've made an imgur album with the relevant answers. Also came across this when someone necromanced a thread.
nice bit of archaeological work resurrecting the threads! While closely related they're not quite on topic, which is moving the public folder, not the users folder. – matt wilkie – 2014-02-28T21:39:36.623
0
I was trying to confirm your issue, but I have no problems changing the location of any of the folders within the Public user folder.
Thor
Posted 2009-08-01T19:38:13.967
Reputation: 3 562
-1
You could just replace them by creating symlinks.
surfasb
Posted 2009-08-01T19:38:13.967
Reputation: 21 453
How do you use symlinks? – Simon Sheehan – 2012-01-02T16:03:18.927
For Step 6, this only worked for me if I opened the shell from the taskbar (if I did that from the start menu it did not work). But it worked, answer accepted. – Omar Shahine – 2010-07-07T17:50:08.327
I used this same basic procedure in Windows 8. The only difference was that for Step #3, I had to kill the "File Explorer" process from the Task Manager. Worked great! – CBono – 2013-10-06T20:26:02.757
1Unfortunately this doesn't work for me, Win7 Home Premium x64. The resultant explorer.exe seems to keep restarting under my own profile. There isn't an account named "Administator" on this machine. Maybe that's why? – matt wilkie – 2014-02-21T00:28:01.253
Do the windows integrated links to public folders still work? I know that folder access privileges remain unchanged so any registered user can access and edit them, but what about homegroup file and music sharing? Does that still work? - I thought this concern might be relevant to your day to day activities – Pathfinder – 2014-04-01T12:17:57.443