Libraries issue

[jyeh74]

So I am trying to redirect my libraries from C drive to D drive.
I accidentally changed the location of my "My Documents" and "My Music" to D:/My Music.
Now I have two "My Music" folder.


When I try to change one of the folders to "My Documents" this is what I get.


I just want to redirect "My Documents" from C drive to D:/My Documents
and "My Music" from C drive to D:/My Music

But I cannot figure it out because it seems like there is duplicate folders now acting as one. I can't even create a new folder and call it "My Document" because when I right click and go to Properties, there is no location tab for me to redirect it. Did I mess it up when I deleted the two original folders?

[jyeh74]

Here is a picture of what the Music folder looks like in the libraries.


Here is a picture of what the Documents folder looks like in the libraries.


So I click "Include a folder" and try to create a new folder in D: called "My Documents" and this is what I get.


I can't figure out what I am doing wrong. How do I get the D:/My Documents back ?
Why does the top picture in my very first post under libraries show 2 "My Music" folders but the windows explorer view only show 1 "My Music" folder? I need help figuring this out. I think something is corrupt.

[jyeh74]

Update - My Documents suddenly appeared out of no where. However, My Music is no where to be found under users. This is strange and I cant seem to recreate it.

Under C:/username in the explorer view (left side) I now have:
My Documents
My Pictures
My Videos

I don't have:
My Music

But if you actually go to my computer, then the username folder, you won't see those three folders.....why is that

[hello_hello]

But if you actually go to my computer, then the username folder, you won't see those three folders.....why is that

I've never quite got my head around how it all works, but until someone else comes along (I still use XP) aren't Libraries kind of virtual folders? You can put folders from all over the hard drive into a particular Library without moving them, so wouldn't you be moving the folders in question to your D drive, but not the library as such?

I think there's initially a Documents Library and a My Documents folder.
I'd take guess you renamed the My Documents folder to My Music and moved it to your D drive. So the Documents library contained a My Music folder which used to be called My Documents and is now on the D drive while the Music library still contains the original My Music folder, wherever that is. Or something like that..... but it'd explain seeing single Documents and Music libraries with a disappearing My Documents folder and why Windows initially refused to rename the My Music folder because you already one.

Are you definitely distinguishing between libraries and folders, because I think that's the issue. You can have various libraries and each library can be assigned folders from somewhere on your hard drive, but by default there's a Documents library, a My Documents folder, and a Music library and a My Music folder etc. It's not like XP where everything was located in the same folder. It can be, but for Win7 it doesn't have to be.

That's the extent of my knowledge and partly guesswork, but I think you probably need to find the My Documents and My Music folders (on your D Drive now?) and re-assign them to the correct libraries.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/10283/understanding-the-libraries-feature-in-windows-7/
For the record, you don't need to call the folders My Documents or My Music etc. You can give them any name you like. If you rename the default "special" folders, sometimes you'll still see "My Documents" instead of the new name when saving files, but it doesn't matter (Windows saves a file that keeps the folder a "My Documents" folder while you call it something else. Mine's called "Darren's Stuff" and the ini file inside looks like this. It's probably more involved for Win7.

[DeleteOnCopy]
Owner=Darren
Personalized=5
PersonalizedName=My Documents
[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=D:\Icons\Documents.ico
IconIndex=0

For XP the simplest and least problematic way to change the location of "special" folders is to cut and paste (move them with Explorer). Windows keeps track and everything keeps working. When you change their location by creating new folders and/or deleting old ones etc, it can get messy if you're not careful, and XP only has folders, not libraries. I'd guess the same would apply to Win7 for moving the folders.

The only problem I found with moving "special folders", is if you're going to move them it's a good idea to do it before installing any software. 99% of the time it's fine but some old software hard-wires itself to the original location when it installs. If at some stage you save something to "My Documents" but it appears to go AWOL, that might be why. Have a look at the old location.
I had one particular program (Microsoft, of course) drive me nutty because I couldn't get it to acknowledge the change of location, so I'd constantly have to navigate to the new location manually for saving files. If I forgot and assumed it was behaving itself, it'd re-create the old My Documents folder on the C Drive and save them there. It's probably not an issue these days, but just so you know.

If folders seem to keep misbehaving while you try to fix the problem, try rebooting to let Windows re-group. If you're in a mess from which there seems to be no way out, try TweakUI. You'll find it via Google. According to Wikipedia it works for Win7 if you run it with administrator privileges in XP compatibility mode. You can set the location of "special" folders like this. You'll have to re-create or fix the libraries yourself if need be.

[jyeh74]

Hello_hello,

Thanks for the detailed write up. I never moved any folders only redirected them under the location tab to D drive. There I tried to create new folders, for example, I created a folder called "Music 2016" but it would never create it. It says folder by this name doesn't exist and whether or not I want to create it. I say "yes" but it always defaults it with "My something" like "My Music" or "My Pictures". So I don't know what the point of redirecting it is, if it automatically creates it for me. I just reformatted my computer so it's brand new.

I think when I redirected the "My Documents" and the "My Music" to the D drive and accidentally put both redirected to "D:/My Music" they became and acted as one folder. I thought I could just delete both folders and recreate them again because they are in the D drive and not the original special folders like they are located in the user name folder on the C drvie. But something must have happened in the D linking it to the C.

[gonca]

Pick a library --- any library
At top will show how many locations are used --- hyperlink
Like hello_hello said --- virtual folders
Click the link and that is how you "move" and otherwise arrange them