The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Changing The Location of the My Documents Folder
John G. Campbell		  

By default, Windows XP automatically creates a folder called My Documents on the hard drive (Drive C). This is where your data or document files are usually stored.
 
If your computer system has two hard drives (Drive C and Drive D), you may find it more convenient to separate your program applications from the document files. You can leave the program applications on the main drive, Drive C and relocate My Documents folder to the second drive, Drive D.

Creating My Documents folder in Drive D and transferring Document files

  1. On your Desktop, right click on My Documents icon.
     
  2. In the pop-up menu, select Properties. See Figure 1 below.

  3. My Document Properties window opens. See Figure 2 below.



Figure 1. Right click pop-up menu to access
Properties command
 



Figure 2. Properties window
  1. In the section labelled "Target folder location", type "D:\My Documents" in the Target box. The new location must be the complete path. See Figure 3 below
  2. Click the Apply button.



Figure 3. Target folder location box



Figure 4. Apply button
  1. Windows XP opens the Create Folder dialog box and asks you if you wish to create a new folder location for My Documents.

  2. Click the Yes button. See Figure 5 below.
     
  3. Windows XP opens the Move Documents dialog box and asks if you wish to move the documents to their new location.

  4. Click Yes. See Figure 6 below.



Figure 5. Create Folder dialog box



Figure 6. More Documents dialog box

  1. Windows XP moves all the document files and folders from their old location in Drive C to their new location in Drive D. Note: Depending on the number of files and folders, this process may take some time.
Changed Your Mind?

Should you change your mind you can easily restore My Documents to its original location on Drive C. This is how you do it:
  1. On your Desktop, right click on My Documents icon.

  2. In the pop-up menu, select Properties.
  1. In My Document Properties window click the Restore Default button.

  1. My Documents folder reverts to Drive C.
Changing the My Documents location for Microsoft Office

Once you have relocated My Documents folder and its contents, you need to let Microsoft Office know its new location.
 
Because Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and so on) is an integrated suite of programs, you only need to change the File locations in one of the applications. Once you have done that, all the integrated programs in Microsoft Office know the new location.

We will use MS Word.
  1. Open Microsoft Word.

  2. Click the Tools menu and select Options.

  3. In the Options dialog box, select the File Locations tab. See Figure 8

  4. In the File Locations section, select Documents. See Figure 9

  5. Click the Modify button.



Figure 8. Accessing the Options menu



Figure 9. Options dialog box



Figure 10. Modify button
    6. The Modify Window opens.
    7. Click and open the drop down list named "Look in:". This will present a list of possible locations.
    8. From the drop-down list, select the new location for My Documents. This will be Drive D. See Figure 13



Figure 11. Modify Location window
 



Figure 13. Drop down location list



Figure 12. Look In box
  1. The Modify Location window opens displaying Drive D. See Figure 14

  2. Select the My Documents folder.

  3. Click the Ok button.

  4. The File Locations tabbed window (Word's Options window) reopens displaying the new location of My Documents folder. See Figure 15



Figure 14. Modify Location window


Figure 15. Options windows showing new location
of My Documents

Reprinted from the March 2005 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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