How to redirect shared folders in Windows XP?
Published: June 2004Author : 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:
- Create a REG_SZ value named CommonMusic and set the path
- Create a REG_SZ value named CommonPictures and set the path
- Create a REG_SZ value named CommonVideo and set the path
Logoff and login back. The shared folders are now redirected successfully.