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Documents and Settings in Vista
By Michael Pietroforte | 13 Comments | Permalink | Trackback | Previous | NextYou probably know that the C:\Documents and Settings folder doesn’t exist anymore in Vista. It was replaced by the C:\Users and C:\ProgramData. Vista uses symbolic links pointing to these new folders for compatibility reasons. However, many guides still refer to the old folder structure. There is a simple trick for using the old folder name in Windows Explorer, though. This way you can find configuration files easier.
If you want to see the symbolic links, you have to enable first “Show hidden files and folders” in Folder Options. To access the Folder Options you must press “ALT” in Windows Explorer to make the menu visible. You’ll find them under tools.
Now, you should be able to see Documents and Settings. But if you double click on it, you’ll get an error messages. Even administrators don’t have enough NTFS rights to navigate to this folder. It is not even possible if you change the rights by taking the ownership.
You can, however, navigate to subfolders of Document and Settings by entering the corresponding folder name in the address bar of Windows Explorer. For example, just type C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\ and you will see all of the user profiles’ subfolders, you know from Windows XP.
This also works if you use a language pack other than English. On a German Vista edition, you can type C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\, for instance.
I guess the safest thing is to use environment variables then. I’m assuming Vista would probably expand variables such as:
%APPDATA%
%HOMEPATH%
%USERPROFILE%
%TEMP%
to their correct vista paths. Or am I wrong? I haven’t really had a chance to play around with Vista yet.
Luke, you’re right, but many software vendors refer to the explicit folder names.
Ugh. WHY do they have to keep changing things every version? Are they sadists or misanthropes?
You can get to documents and settings by taking ownership. you just need to make sure that you remove deny from all users to documents and settings.
I agree with Greg. they just seem to be changing for the sake of changing
[...] really? Hrm. Try this link: 4sysops – Documents and Settings in Vista I’d try the renaming skin folder renaming trick, first, though. Did that not work? [...]
okay. What window has to be opened when you press alt?
it can really be any window, but push and let go. Holding it down doesn’t change anything.
the toolbar will show just above the organize, view, open etc toolbar that you see normally.
clicking off the window also makes it collapse.
I appreciate your kindly explanation very much. It is very helpful for my job.
thank you so much!!!!
thanks for the tip! It really helped
[...] don’y have Vista, but I think that this article may [...]
Hi!. Thanks for your valuable information about that folder. Today by accident i move a folder with 160Gb of files to the documts and settings folder and i was thinking all are lose because i can’t enter there, but again thanks to for your info, i recover all.