Question Upgrading to windows 10. Folder structure changes. Documents and my documents.

[SeverinV]

Hi all,
So in windows 7 there were two folders called documents. One tied to the library folder (together with music, pictures and video folders) and my documents folder, which was located directly under user profile.
I do not know if i am getting this right, but from what i read, in win 10 we no longer have two "documents " folder. They are merged into one.
Am i getting this right, if so will my games/programs profiles/settings will be affected in any way?
Or did i misread.
Anyhow thank you for the clarification.
Have a nice day,
Cheers,

 

[SkyNetRising]

So in windows 7 there were two folders called documents. One tied to the library folder (together with music, pictures and video folders) and my documents folder, which was located directly under user profile.

Documents and My Documents is the same folder.
Real folder name is Documents. It is being shown as My Documents only to owner of the folder.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

will my games/programs profiles/settings will be affected in any way?

you should be backing up all of your important personal files before attempting any OS change no matter what the folder structures are.
you never know what issues may arise during the upgrade related to any user accounts or any drives themselves.

game profiles are stored in many different locations in Windows.
some in your personal 'My Games' folder and other personal folders, some in the system 'ProgramData' folder, others in basic 'Users' folders, etc.
some may even be using multiple folders for separate data; ini files, save files, mod files, etc.

some games will not even function right off the bat after the upgrade without a reinstall.

after the upgrade and any necessary reinstallation of said games you should have their data backed up to replace as needed to whatever location needed.

 

[USAFRet]

Hi all,
So in windows 7 there were two folders called documents. One tied to the library folder (together with music, pictures and video folders) and my documents folder, which was located directly under user profile.
I do not know if i am getting this right, but from what i read, in win 10 we no longer have two "documents " folder. They are merged into one.
Am i getting this right, if so will my games/programs profiles/settings will be affected in any way?
Or did i misread.
Anyhow thank you for the clarification.
Have a nice day,
Cheers,

Before any upgrade like this, you need to have a known good 100% backup of any personal data you do not wish to lose.
Bad things can happen.

 

[SeverinV]

you should be backing up all of your important personal files before attempting any OS change no matter what the folder structures are.
you never know what issues may arise during the upgrade related to any user accounts or any drives themselves.

game profiles are stored in many different locations in Windows.
some in your personal 'My Games' folder and other personal folders, some in the system 'ProgramData' folder, others in basic 'Users' folders, etc.
some may even be using multiple folders for separate data; ini files, save files, mod files, etc.

some games will not even function right off the bat after the upgrade without a reinstall.

after the upgrade and any necessary reinstallation of said games you should have their data backed up to replace as needed to whatever location needed.

My games folder is another folder altogether. It is located in my documents folder. True, for example save games, game setting and info for pathfinder games is located in AppData\LocalLow\Owlcat Games.
I am not talking about registry and running them out of the bat. I am talking about saved variables.
Let me show you what i mean by document and my documents folders.

Before any upgrade like this, you need to have a known good 100% backup of any personal data you do not wish to lose.
Bad things can happen.

I will be buying a new ssd for win 10. Documents folder is located on my 2nd hdd drive, my documents folder is located on 3rd hdd drive.

 

[SeverinV]

Documents and My Documents is the same folder.
Real folder name is Documents. It is being shown as My Documents only to owner of the folder.

In windows 7, it is not. Look at the picture below.

Spoiler

 

[USAFRet]

I will be buying a new ssd for win 10. Documents folder is located on my 2nd hdd drive, my documents folder is located on 3rd hdd drive.

These are the default Windows libraries, just relocated?

By what method did you do this?

 

[USAFRet]

I will be buying a new ssd for win 10.

So a clean install of Win 10?

 

[SkyNetRising]

In windows 7, it is not. Look at the picture below.

They will be different folders only, if you have manually assigned a different folder to My documents library.
Normally - they are the same folder.

 

[USAFRet]

Let me show you what i mean by document and my documents folders.

The default config of Win 7 was a single "My Documents"Library folder for each user, and a Public one.
Unless you manually created one, there was not both Documents and My Documents.

 

[SeverinV]

n 10?

Yes, i want to keep my windows 7 install if something is not right/goes wrong.

They will be different folders only, if you have manually assigned a different folder to My documents library.
Normally - they are the same folder.

If you say so. Nevertheless i want to know if can do the same thing on windows 10.

 

[SkyNetRising]

If you say so. Nevertheless i want to know if can do the same thing on windows 10.

If you do inplace upgrade from win7 to win 10, then
My Documents library assignment may get reset.
But you can assign My documents to custom folder in windows 10 as well.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

My games folder is another folder altogether. It is located in my documents folder.

as I stated,

game profiles are stored in many different locations in Windows.
some in your personal 'My Games' folder and other personal folders, some in the system 'ProgramData' folder, others in basic 'Users' folders, etc.
some may even be using multiple folders for separate data; ini files, save files, mod files, etc.

you can reassign the Documents, Pictures, Music, etc folders as you wish.

whether the games will use this folder as their default depends on the game itself.
many use different paths so you will still need your files backed up before the new OS is installed and replace as necessary.

 

[USAFRet]

And however you did this Library relocation in Win 7, it is not the same procedure in Win 10.

In the past, this lib relocation was sort of a good idea, simply due to small SSD sizes.
Today, not so much.

 

[SeverinV]

as I stated,



you can reassign the Documents, Pictures, Music, etc folders as you wish.

whether the games will use this folder as their default depends on the game itself.
many use different paths so you will still need your files backed up before the new OS is installed and replace as necessary.

Thanks for the info.

And however you did this Library relocation in Win 7, it is not the same procedure in Win 10.

In the past, this lib relocation was sort of a good idea, simply due to small SSD sizes.
Today, not so much.

I will try to find the resolution when i install the new os.
The amount of data i held in document folder is rather huge, some stuff in there is even from my windows xp days.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for the info.

I will try to find the resolution when i install the new os.
The amount of data i held in document folder is rather huge, some stuff in there is even from my windows xp days.

What size is the new SSD for Win 10?

You can move some of that old stuff off to other drives and folders, without actually doing the Library relocation thing.

 

[SeverinV]

What size is the new SSD for Win 10?

You can move some of that old stuff off to other drives and folders, without actually doing the Library relocation thing.

1 TB.

 

[USAFRet]

1 TB.

For that, I'd just leave the Windows Libraries in their default locations.
Relocating those used to be beneficial, when SSDs were tiny. Like 120GB.

Today, not so much.

But if you DO want data to reside elsewhere, Windows and applications have gotten really good at this, even with the Libs in their regular places.

Just save a file in whatever other space you want, and the next time that application wants to save something, it will generally default to that alternate place.

Or the Downloads library.
Mine is changed in the browsers. And it is a sub folder on a whole different physical system, my NAS.

 

[SeverinV]

For that, I'd just leave the Windows Libraries in their default locations.
Relocating those used to be beneficial, when SSDs were tiny. Like 120GB.

Today, not so much.

But if you DO want data to reside elsewhere, Windows and applications have gotten really good at this, even with the Libs in their regular places.

Just save a file in whatever other space you want, and the next time that application wants to save something, it will generally default to that alternate place.

Or the Downloads library.
Mine is changed in the browsers. And it is a sub folder on a whole different physical system, my NAS.

A lot of games store there profiles in documents folder rather where they are installed nowadays.
I have 2 4TB WD red drives for storing data.
My user and library folders combined are taking over 380 GB of storage.
So yeah, i would prefer not to keep them on my ssd xD

 

[USAFRet]

A lot of games store there profiles in documents folder rather where they are installed nowadays.
I have 2 4TB WD red drives for storing data.
My user and library folders combined are taking over 380 GB of storage.
So yeah, i would prefer not to keep them on my ssd xD

Relocating the Libraries is different in Win 10 vs 7.
For Win 10, this:

How To - How to Redirect Folders to Other Drives in Windows

So you’ve gotten a new SSD, and don’t want to fill it up with needless stuff. Redirect those files/folders elsewhere. Open Windows Explorer in Desktop On your proposed target drive, create the relevant target folders. You must do this. If you just designate the drive root (D: ) it will attempt...

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