Move Location of Documents Folder in Windows 10  

@Brink it's not the screenshot you're waiting for but I also add mine to illustrate my post

FTP said:

But clearly, there was a change with Windows 10. If we do that now (and I've seen that on 2 PCs)...
- the shortcut name under "This PC" is not named "Documents" any more but "D:"
- its icon becomes the icon of a file
- if we look at the shortcut properties > Customize, we can't change/personalize the icon any more
- but its Desktop.ini file is normal, it includes the appropriate settings...

Code:

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21770
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-112
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-235

That said, I've not noticed any other issue than this aesthetic one.

Here is a screenshot of it...

Brink said:

It looks like you moved your Documents folder to the root of the "D" drive by mistake instead of to a new folder named Documents in "D".

Not at all. I did it voluntarily for the last 20 years and it has always worked perfectly fine

Here is an extract of my post of Nov. 18th on the previous page...

FTP said:

Personally, I've ALWAYS done that: changing the target of the Documents shortcut to the root of the D:\ drive.
I've done that on Windows 95, XP and 7 (I skipped all the other versions of Windows).

And I can tell, we can even easily reproduce it, that on all those versions of Windows it was working perfectly fine.
The Documents shortcut in Windows Explorer was properly named "Documents" and it had its specific icon.

But clearly, there was a change with Windows 10. If we do that now...

(...)

So to make it clear, this option to choose the root of a drive instead of a folder has been working fine for 20 years, but since Windows 10, it now has a side effect on the shortcut name and icon.

Any one knows if this aesthetic issue can be fixed?
(as it's for me still an option as I've not found any functional issue generated by this setting)

Brink said:

Just to verify, did you already try this below?

See if using the .bat file in step 5 option 2 of the tutorial below may restore the default location of your Documents folder so you can start over fresh to move it again.

No.

1/ I'm not willing to do move my data currently on the D: drive back to the C: drive.
My D: drive is 100% dedicated to store my data and my C: drive is 100% dedicated to store the OS and the installed software.
I don't mix.

2/ I'm also not willing to create a \Documents\ folder on the D: drive to concentrate all my folders apart from Music, Pictures & Videos inside.
I'm happy with all my main folders directly accessible in the root of the D: drive, where Music, Pictures & Videos are just 3 of those in the middle of others like Books, Companies, Development, IT, Personal, Software, Travel, etc.
For me (and I'm not talking for others), a \Documents\ folder would makes no sense. I have documents in nearly every folder.

In fact, I use the "Documents" shortcut like a "My files" shortcut, "My data" shortcut.

And once again, it has been working perfectly fine for 20 years on all previous versions of Windows. That's why you get all those users tricked and surprised that it's not working any more on Windows10.
I really don't know why there's this issue on Windows 10, this bug or weird behaviour, call it how you want, but (so far) it's only an aesthetic issue.
There's no other consequence.

So I'm more in the mood of finding if this minor issue can be fixed, than of getting forced to reorganize how my 1TB of data are stored

Brink said:

If you're happy with how it is now other than the name, then it may not be worth doing anything.

Well, I'm not happy of this issue on Windows 10.
I still hope an expert will investigate and find a fix to bring back the normal behaviour, that has been the one of all Windows versions for the last 20-25 years (or at least just find how to personalize this icon and name to manually put back the correct icon and name, maybe via the registry)

It would be more productive than forcing everyone to reorganize their data storage, especially by using a folder name that makes very little sense and force to add a useless level of sub folder.
When you have a lot of data and are quite organized, it's easy to reach the maximum number of characters for paths. So adding useless levels of sub-folders is never a good thing.

Hello

Bit of an old thread but I am wondering - I have been successful with this tutorial for years now on all our home machines.

On my recording machine - I made the mistake of installing One Drive a few weeks back and now I am experiencing all sorts of oddball behavior with this specific tutorial.

All is well when I go to actually "move" the documents from the defualt (C:\Users\Username\Documents) to my desired location (M:\Documents) but I am seeing that not everything moves?

I end up with a series of folders that are duplicated and I am baffled as to why. Of course this turns into a marathon session trying to fix the standard folder icons and a load of other crap.

Any tips on why this move is not happening cleanly world be most appreciated.

Cheers!

Sonic.