Vista Desktop Folders redirect

Microsoft has changed in Vista's the user folders from XP's "C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\~" to "C:\USERS\~"

Therefore, in Vista when using a windows app, clicking DESKTOP in the Save/Save AS dialog box points to the C:\USER location. The mapping somewhat works properly in Vista from the Explorer...but not from Office Aps (possiblly others).

Attached is a snapshot of Vista Explorer. The second folders (DESKTOP/DOCUMENTS/MUSIC/PICTURES) are visible here.

The Shared Profile Folders works perfectly in Windows XP.

Using fresh installs of:

MAC OSX 10.5.6
WINDOWS Vista SP1
Parallels Dktop for Mac 4.0.3810

 

danisrael,

This looks like a Windows upgrade issue. You should contact Microsoft support about it.

 

Found the cause. Turns out this is caused by the initial creation of the user's profile...before Parallels changes the registry settings to map them to the Mac's folder shares. The existing folders created by Vista remain on the system. To resolve them, you can simply delete them (provided there are no needed files in them).

Apps that do not relocate, will relocate upon using them after deletion. And the lack of two folders called DESKTOP, etc...removes accidental confusion. This is only an issue with Vista. XP & Parallels work without the folder doubling.

IMOH...if you're a single user - using Vista: Use the Windows LOCATION Property to MOVE (or retarget) the special folders is a cleaner way to accomplish this. In Vista right click the special folder> select the LOCATION tab and click MOVE. The default relocation to map to your Mac's special folder is \\.psf\Home\Desktop\ (etc).

This also will ask if you want to "merge" the windows existing files to the new location.