Re: Want My Pictures and My Documents folder shortcuts on same level in Explore window

From: cquirke (MVP Win9x) (cquirkenews_at_nospam.mvps.org)
Date: 05/10/04 

Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 12:12:37 +0200

On Sun, 9 May 2004 08:23:44 -0700, "Peter Sale"

>My Documents (shortcut?) appears on the left hand side of my Windows XP Pro
>Explore Window. Desktop, My Computer, My Network Places and Norton Protected
>Recycle Bin also appear in this Windows Explorer window. It looks something
>like this:

>Desktop
>+ My Documents
>+ My Computer
>+ My Network Places
>+ Norton Protected Recycle Bin

Yes. Namespace objects (if set to be displayed) such as "My Computer"
and directories ("File Folders") created on the desktop will appear so

>It appears that My Documents is a shortcut to the "real" My Documents.

Yes; it is a "namespace object". These aren't files or directories,
but are nonetheless displayed as folders within the hierarchy
displayed by Windows Explorer.

Some namespace objects map to:

1) A particular directory, e.g. the "My Documents" object
2) A filtered view of a directory, e.g. "Control Panel"
3) An interpreted view of one or more container files, e.g. "History"
4) Other, e.g. "Dial-Up Networking", "Network Neighborhood"

If (1), then you will see the same content positioned both as per the
namespace object and where the actual directory exists.

If (2), you may see the items in another place in a different way,
e.g. the .CPL files within the System folder vs. "Control Panel"

If (3), you may see the raw container files if viewing the directory
in a namespace-unaware file browser.

>would like to add My Pictures immediately under My Documents.

The best way to do that is to create a desktop shortcut that points to
whatever directory is "My Pictures", and name it that.

A definitive but difficut way would be to cause the directory to
appear there as a namespace object.

A dumb way to do that would be to drag the relevant directory to the
desktop and name it "My Pictures".

>attempts to add a shortcut to My Pictures simply places a short cut to My
>Pictures on the Desktop and this short cut does not appear on the left hand
>side of my Windows XP Pro Explore window.

Oh, OK; yes, I can see that would be a problem.

XP seems to create different kinds of shortcuts in different ways - as
I found accidentally when trying to create a shortcut to a folder
within the Start Menu. Instead of the expected Folder icon with arrow
overlay that opened the folder when clicked, I got the folder itself,
appearing to work as a seamless extension of the menu.

That's close to what you want, so I might try to copy that to the
desktop and see if it works. But be careful to verify that what you
have *is* a shortcut, and not the only copy of the actual subtree you
are trying to point to. That would be Bad, in several ways.

I'm not in front of XP now, but I may play with this later when I am!

>What I am attempting to do is display My Pictures as below:
>
>Desktop
>+ My Documents
>+ My Pictures
>+ My Computer
>+ My Network Places
>+ Norton Protected Recycle Bin

Yep. If my ideas bear fruit, I'll post back later ;-)

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