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How to redirect shared folders in Windows XP?

Published: June 2004
Author    : Keith Miller
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Introduction

The Shared Documents link shown in the My Computer window, is just a pointer to another folder. Its location, by default is set as %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Documents. If you want to redirect the Shared folders to a different drive or a network path, follow the steps in this article.

Note:  The %allusersprofile% placeholder represents the path to the All Users profile folder, which is usually C:\Documents and Settings\All Users.

Relocating the Shared Documents folder

Click Start, Run and type regedit.exe

Navigate to the following branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right-pane, look for the entry named Common Documents and double-click it. To relocate the shared documents folder, type the new path (say D:\SharedDocs) in the text box provided. The default Value data is %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Documents

Relocating the sub-folders of Shared Documents

To relocate the Shared Music, Shared Pictures and Shared Video folders along with Shared Documents, navigate to teh following registry branch:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ User Shell Folders

In the right pane, do the following:

Logoff and login back. The shared folders are now redirected successfully.