The path to the My Documents folder is stored in the
following registry key:
Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Key: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
Name: Personal
Type: REG_SZ
Value: fully
qualified path to storage location
You can move the
document location:
- Right-click My Documents on the Desktop
- Click Properties
- Select Target box
- Do either:
Type the new path to the My Documents folder
–or–Browse to the desired folder and if needed, create a new My Documents folder - Do either:
Click Yes to move files from the old My Documents location to
the new location
–or–
Click No if you do not want to move these files.
Selecting No does not delete the files in the old location, but
means they are no longer visible from My Documents after the change
When you use this method to modify the location of My Documents, the
change modifies the following registry key also:
Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
Key: Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell
Folders
Name: Personal
Type: REG_SZ
Value: fully qualified path to
storage location
There may be a Group Policy which redirects My
Documents. If so the above value will exist and the option to modify the
location of the My Documents folder will not available when you view the
properties of the My Documents folder.
You can change the location back to the default if the group policy
redirection is not in effect. This is very useful should the My Documents folder not be visible due to an incorrect path
in the registry or other problem. To set the path for the My Documents folder
back to the original default location:
- Right-click My Documents on the Desktop
- Click Properties
- Click Restore Default.
This uses the following registry
value to determine the default location based on the user’s profile and appends
“\My Documents” to form a complete path.Hive: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Key: Software\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\user ID
Name: ProfileImagePath
Type: REG_EXPAND_SZ
Value: where user ID is the appropriate user
ID
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