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Summary: Two previously standard folders, "Documents and Settings" and "Local Settings", appear to be locked in Windows Vista. The reason: they've been moved.
As best I can figure Microsoft is trying to make it very difficult to access those old folders. Yes, I said "old folders". Apparently in Windows Vista, the folders have been moved. The information is elsewhere and fully accessible in the new location. • If you try to open "C:\Documents and Settings" in Windows Explorer on Vista, you're quite likely to get this error:
Even if you're logged in as administrator you may still get that error. The "problem" here is that Microsoft has apparently moved everything that used to be in "Documents and Settings" into a new folder called "Users". Open that and you'll probably get what you were expecting out of "Documents and Settings":
In fact you may notice that "Documents and Settings" is displayed with a shortcut icon in Windows Explorer:
As you can guess, "Documents and Settings" is a shortcut to "Users", presumably present for compatibility reasons. You can probably also guess what's happened with "Local Settings". Normally you'd find it in "c:\Documents and Settings\[user]\Local Settings". It's been moved to "c:\Users\[user]\AppData\Local":
I don't know the specific reasons for the changes. One observation is that the "new" paths have no spaces in them, making me wonder if the old names were particularly problematic when configuring software to use these locations. That doesn't seem like enough of a reason, though, for a change of this magnitude. In any case, if you get access denied at the old location, the solution is simple: go to the new location instead. Related:
• Recent Comments
WARNING! DEEPLY NERDY RESPONSE! Now here's the weird part - the "My Documents" folder is kind of still there in Vista. It is now a hidden "Junction Point". A junction point is a hidden file pointer in NTFS. What does that mean to you? It means that older programs, which are hard coded to copy files to the My Documents directory, will be redirected to the new Documents folder in Windows Vista. If you're really nerdy, you can try this test: Where does this get to be a challenge? I use RoboCopy to back-up my documents onto a thumb-drive each day at work. This gives me a portable, readable image that is easy to work with. However, the "My Documents" junction point gives RoboCopy fits causing "Access Denied" errors. I had to add the /R:1 command line option to skip the error and continue with the MIRror. Posted by: Dave B at July 24, 2007 08:07 AMGuys, the solution for this is simple. You just have to take ownership of those folders (and there subfolders) in Vista. Then you will have full permission to access the content. Make sure your account has full access on the security settings and your current account is what holds the ownership permission and not "Administrator" (the one for XP)or whatever its set as by default.. Don't worry, if you are doing a dual boot, you can still access XP. The permission only changes in Vista. Posted by: Chris at July 31, 2007 02:45 AMHi. Not all folders are accessible. The junction point folders will still say denied. No matter what you do. Because they are are virtual. You need to access then using the "Compatibility Files button". Which will lead you to the real folders in: C:\Users\User_name\AppData\Local\VirtualStore "Example" Here, IE7 running in protected mode utilizes this functionality so when you visit a webpage that tries to insert a file into the Startup folder, it instead is placed in the virtual startup folder and will not execute upon the next boot. By placing them in a virtual folder. the system does not look for them on boot-up. But they are accessible by ways of the junction point folders. Which will always give you a "Denied" pop-up. No matter how you try to set them or your permissions.
One possible reason for changing the location is due to the fact that most Windows applications can't deal with path names greater than 255 characters and so shortening "Documents and Settings" to "Users" and shortening "My Documents" to "Documents" and shortening "My Documents\My Pictures" to just "Pictures" (and so on) saves on valuable characters that might be the difference between an application working or not working. For example, if you tried to install Visual Studio 2003 Beta 1 from a folder on your desktop in Windows XP (assuming your username was your first and last name) there were files that would fail to install because of this limitation. Posted by: Josh Einstein at August 3, 2007 02:06 PMhi i just got vista and was setting up permissions and got very confused by the BCY damn i hate vista. moving things does not a better program make. Ok, so I accidently fried my old mobo, (don't ask, but it involves an electric drill) so I hooked up my old hard drive to my new computer, to transfer the files. Leo and others... I have known about the shortcut and hidden juntions but my question is, if I erase them will Vista still work ok? Any ideas? Posted by: Justin at November 27, 2007 11:59 PMI found that the change in location, by Vista, can affect Movie Maker. It can return a "General access denied error". When this happens the registry has to be edited to change the location of the temporary files from C:\Users\Local Settings\Temp folder to one that is accessible. I created C:\Users\Temp as the folder. There may be other programs that have the same problem. I have not come across them. What is strange is that Movie Maker comes installed with the OS. Posted by: David Grainger at January 13, 2008 04:15 PMHi all Post a comment on "Why can't I access the Documents and Settings or Local Settings folders in Windows Vista?":
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