Restore Default Location of Personal Folders in Windows 10

Try3 · 17 Sep 2023

isidroco said:

To avoid breaking windows not installed on drive C:

I do appreciate that you are correct.

Brink,

This is the User shell folders entry for a brand new, unadulterated local user account.

Restore Default Location of Personal Folders in Windows 10-brandnewuser-usershellfolders.png

I made that diagram in 2020 but the never-altered, boring entries in my own 2016-vintage user account [PrintHood and below] also use %UserProfile%.
And I just checked a brand new user in Windows 11 and saw the same results.

But I do agree that Windows will almost always refer to its drive as C:\. I've only seen a difference in one Windows installation and I never understood why.
- During the Windows 10 Preview period, I set up two computers to dual boot Windows 10.
- One of them was normal - Windows 10, when running, called its drive C:\.
- The other one was abnormal - Windows 10, when running, called its drive F:\. This is not a case of confusion between the OSes or what the not-in-use OS drive was called; Windows 10, when running, called its drive F:\.
I have seen a few posts in which people have said they have also experienced this but I'd be surprised if I have seen more than half a dozen such reports.

As for WinXP, I think that not all its user folder defaults fitted a common pattern. I have a vague recollection that the Desktop folder was the odd one out. But I would expect anybody who now needs to change user folder locations in WinXP to be able to do the job themselves anyway. I don't think it would even be worth the effort of running a test of this.

All the best,
Denis

isidroco · 17 Sep 2023

Brink said:

...As for WinXP, I think that not all its user folder defaults fitted a common pattern. I have a vague recollection that the Desktop folder was the odd one out. But I would expect anybody who now needs to change user folder locations in WinXP to be able to do the job themselves anyway. I don't think it would even be worth the effort of running a test of this.
All the best,
Denis

On winXP, some folders won't be used at all (ie: Contacts), but won't harm being set. The problem is that on XP:
%USERPROFILE%=C:\Documents and Settings\YourUserName
So using "C:\Users\%USERNAME%" instead will break all folders, and using "%USERPROFILE%" instead will make things always work (no matter which drive windows is, and works on XP up to win11... That's why I suggested that change. An allinone batch would be nice too (I made that for my own usage), can send it to you if you want. Cheers!