Windows 10: Duplicated Documents and Pictures folders

Hi

I just moved most of the default folder locations. Most worked, three did not, Pictures, Music and Videos. Well they did work and all function and sync as I would expect in the new location.

However, can't work out why for two of them I have a duplicate folder in C:/Users/..... What can I do to resolve this. When I try to click on these folders I get an access denied message.

As far as I know I followed the same procedure for each, choosing to move all the files with the change of default location.









Can anyone help me on this?

 

Found that after a restart I was able to delete the empty folders in C:/users/appdata....

Everything seems to be working ok, correctly recognised etc with all those I moved.

 

What worked for me was changing the registry to identify new user profiles should be created in a different location than the SSD drive. Then I created new user profiles, copied my old data into the new profiles' file structure, and then deleted the old profiles on the SSD except for Default User and some aspects of Public.

Registry keys: ProfilesDirectory and Public
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList

Ref:
[Forum FAQ]How to customize the location of the user profile folder in Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 10122

 

Hi lhgarrett,
Thank you for taking the trouble to reply to my query. As it happens, since I posted, my hard drive crashed so Windows has had to be reinstalled and the folders seem to be working as they should. Slightly drastic way of getting it sorted, perhaps, but it's got the problem out of the way!

 

Here is how I did what the OP wants:

My C drive is on an ssd. Because I needed more space than the ssd offered, I wanted my four most important folders (Documents, Pictures, Music and Video) to be on the much bigger internal hard drive (Drive D). This involved manually making four (in my case) new (target) folders with the same names on that internal hard drive (D). (To do that, I opened Drive D and did Right Click > New.) Then, after a few more steps, Windows was configured to thereafter Redirect (the formal word/command) all save, open etc commands to those target folders rather than the default ones on the C drive. The step-by-step instructions are on the following Web site:

• How to Move Your Documents Folder Location in Windows 10
• How to Move Your Pictures Folder Location in Windows 10

After the actions in the Web site have been followed, the following windows will appear when you press This PC or File Explorer:

Attachment 150088This shows View > Tiles. (You might need to scroll at the top of the window to select Tiles - Tiles is just my favourite).

But the Documents etc, are empty. That's OK. Redirection only operates on newly created files. Note the Web site gives instructions about about Moving (not copying) all your existing files to the new folders.

To test, create a dummy file and save it to Documents (navigate to Documents and note in passing that it is now filled with your existing files). Then press This PC or File Explorer (to open the same window in the attachments to this message). Confirm again that all your existing files and the dummy file are in Documents. As before, you see only one set of Documents etc. folders but they are actually on Drive D. Repeat for as many folders as you want. I redirected four in all. Simple.

All this is not as complex as looking at the instructions implies.

 

In step 6 of those tutorials it shows to answer yes to 'do you want to move files from the old location to the new location'. If you answer yes it should move the files.

 

Thanks Steve, but I'm sorted. See previous post. I hope others can get past this problem!