Save your “My Documents” and “Desktop” Onto Another Drive/Parittion
July 5th 2006 04:04
Ever worry that there will be a day where you would need to format your PC due to almost-impossible-to-remove viruses or malware, or just that you need to do some major upgrading of your hardware? Think of all that data you need to backup; documents from work/school, your precious MP3 collection, digital pictures or your prized pr0n collection. Well most of them would be scattered throughout your “My Documents” folder or on your “Desktop”. Now wouldn’t it be great if you can save these 2 locations onto another drive/partition? Well it’s actually quite simple to do.
For your “My Documents” folder, just create a folder in another partition/drive with the same name (preferably, I store mine in “X:\Personal Settings\My Documents”). Once you’ve done that, right click on the original “My Documents” folder (either on your desktop or your “Start Menu”) and select properties. Click on the “Move” button and navigate to the new folder you just created. A dialog box will then ask you whether you want to move the existing content in your “My Documents” folder into the new location, and choose yes if you do want to or no if you want to start fresh.
The re-location of the desktop is a bit more complicated. The first thing you need to do is create a folder called “Desktop” (or any other name) in another partition/drive (mine is in “X:\Personal Settings\Desktop”). Then what you need to do is open your registry (go to “Start Menu – Run” and type “regedit”) and navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Once you have done this you will see a list of “String Values” on the right (those little “ab” icons). Right click on the “Desktop” item and select “Modify”. Then type in the new desktop location (in my case I would type down “X:\Personal Settings\Desktop”) and click “OK”. Close the regedit program and you’re almost done. Now what you need to do is cut/copy (I prefer to copy, then delete them) all your items on your original desktop (including shortcuts, excluding desktop items such as “My Documents”, “Recycle Bin”, “My Computer”, “My Network Places” and “Internet Explorer”) and paste them into the new “Desktop” folder you created. Restart the PC and you should have all your desktop items in your new “Desktop” folder on another partition/drive.
For your “My Documents” folder, just create a folder in another partition/drive with the same name (preferably, I store mine in “X:\Personal Settings\My Documents”). Once you’ve done that, right click on the original “My Documents” folder (either on your desktop or your “Start Menu”) and select properties. Click on the “Move” button and navigate to the new folder you just created. A dialog box will then ask you whether you want to move the existing content in your “My Documents” folder into the new location, and choose yes if you do want to or no if you want to start fresh.
The re-location of the desktop is a bit more complicated. The first thing you need to do is create a folder called “Desktop” (or any other name) in another partition/drive (mine is in “X:\Personal Settings\Desktop”). Then what you need to do is open your registry (go to “Start Menu – Run” and type “regedit”) and navigate to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Once you have done this you will see a list of “String Values” on the right (those little “ab” icons). Right click on the “Desktop” item and select “Modify”. Then type in the new desktop location (in my case I would type down “X:\Personal Settings\Desktop”) and click “OK”. Close the regedit program and you’re almost done. Now what you need to do is cut/copy (I prefer to copy, then delete them) all your items on your original desktop (including shortcuts, excluding desktop items such as “My Documents”, “Recycle Bin”, “My Computer”, “My Network Places” and “Internet Explorer”) and paste them into the new “Desktop” folder you created. Restart the PC and you should have all your desktop items in your new “Desktop” folder on another partition/drive.
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