Re: Way too many "My Documents" folders!!

On Mon, 25 Sep 2006 17:18:00 -0700, Malke <notreally@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Ian wrote:
"Rock" wrote:

Meanwhile I do have to sympathise that all these 'My This' 'My That'
and 'My Other Thing' folders that sprout like mushrooms within My
Documents are extremely confusing.

It doesn't help when Windows plays silly-buggers with the names. I'd
rather see exactly what the file system is, rather than some "easy"
overlay that hides this essential truth.

For example, if I wrote a review on a computer, _why_ would I want to
put the write-up and the photos I took in two entirely-unrelated
places? That would be silly, and would just lead to one or other being
mislaid.

Folks may want to de-bulk the data set so that it can be backed up
easily, and that's a good reason to locate bulky Pictures, Music and
Videos out of the "Documents".

Folks may also want to restore their data backups with confidence
after an unexplained melt-down, without the fear that malware will be
brought back into the system that way.

This objective is NOT served by:
- advising users to dump .EXE in "My Docs" to block SR effects
- using "My Docs" as the duhfault location for IE downloads
- auto-running code (macros) in what are supposed to be "data" files
- dumping "My Received Files" (MS Messenger) in the data set
- MSN Messenger as above + you can't change this until "logged in"

Surely I would put them in the SAME folder, or maybe into a 'pics'
folder under the 'XZ3000 Review' folder I'd created to hold the
document. If I then burn a disc of the review material, do I want
that to be stored under 'My DVDS' instead of in the review's own
folder? Of course I don't!

The point we're making is that different folks want to manage content
in different ways, and it's damn annoying to have Windows hard-coding
particular nesting, names etc. into the system.

But of course you don't have to use it.

Actually, you do - because apps take their cues from these shell
locations, and malware can find and use them too. Some apps are
hard-coded to do this, e.g. The Sims 2 will dump a CDR's worth of game
data in "My Docs" so your "real" 20M of data won't fit on a 128M USB
stick anymore - unless you sift through your files one at a time, etc.

It's also nearly impossible to preset the "Default User" profile
prototype so that all new user accounts will start off using your
choice of locations (as well as web cache size, UI settings, etc.).

I don't use My Documents on any of my Windows machines
except for the laptop (which is really a school laptop for my son
so it doesn't count).

Ask your son whether it "counts" or not :-)

I always put in second hard drives and save things in a way
that is easy to back up and logical to the user.

Sure, so do I - but it involves smashing one's head against the MS
duhfaults, and I've not found an easy way to apply these settings to
the new account prototype. So every time someone creates a new user
account, all the settings etc. have to be done again, plus installed
apps will have already derived their own data paths from the
duhfaults. In practice, I don't use multiple accounts at ALL.

In a business environment, you shouldn't be saving anything locally
anyway.

Not all businesses subscribe to the "put everything on the server then
pay network admin a fortune in case we lose access to the lot" model,
and nor should they. Over a certain size, "pro IT" network and user
admin makes sense, but below that, it may be a bad fit.

For example, if you have 10 PCs looking up a central database, you may
as well go server-centric because if they can't access that database,
no work can get done. The dependency's already there, anyway.

But for another example, consider 10 professionals who each work on
their own projects. Why should this data be centralized in a single
point of failure, potentially making it impossible for anyone to do
any work if it falls over? I'd rather use the network to share
printers and Internet access, facilitate messaging between desks, and
act as a centralized backup repository - but keep data on the PCs.

And of course on my main machines I always put /home on a second hard
drive or in the case of the laptop, a separate partition.

Sure. The systems I build do not routinely have extra HDs (it's not
that cost-effective) but do partition the single HD for speed and
survivability. I'd want all bloated data stores on E:, all incoming
material in a "suspect" subtree on E:, and all genuine (i.e.
user-created) small data on D:, and no data on C: at all.

But try and bash that clue into XP, and have it applied automatically
to the new user accounts you might create? Tricky...

So just because Windows comes with "My Whatever" doesn't mean you have
to use it. But that isn't what the OP was asking about. ;-)

As above. Too many apps derive their own data path s from these shell
locations for comfort... we need a proper end-user UI to control these
theings, both for existing accounts and to pre-set new ones.

From what I see of Vista, this is NOT getting better - half the time
the real location is hidden behind various shortcut trickeries.



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