Does Vista really need this??????

T

TheBossMan

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I have got something for you guys with Vista on a VM to try...
Was busy deleting stuff from my HDD and I highlighted the folders I wanted to delete. Somehow I higlighted the "documents and settings" folder, because after deleting all the folders I can't find my "documents and settings"
anymore even searched for it with Windows search, but nothing..
I know Vista uses the Users folder which is basically the same..

So my question is does Vista really need this folder to be there.. Was actually busy making space on my 160GB SATA to install Vista on there and remove Vista from my 80GB IDE (where it is currently running on).. Vista still boots up and seem to be working fine after deleting the "documents and settings" :confused::confused::confused:
 
TheBossMan said:
I have got something for you guys with Vista on a VM to try...
Was busy deleting stuff from my HDD and I highlighted the folders I wanted to delete. Somehow I higlighted the "documents and settings" folder, because after deleting all the folders I can't find my "documents and settings"
anymore even searched for it with Windows search, but nothing..
I know Vista uses the Users folder which is basically the same..

So my question is does Vista really need this folder to be there.. Was actually busy making space on my 160GB SATA to install Vista on there and remove Vista from my 80GB IDE (where it is currently running on).. Vista still boots up and seem to be working fine after deleting the "documents and settings" :confused::confused::confused:
Click to expand...

I might be wrong, but the Users folder contains info about the user's setting (i.e. local variables). The documents and settings' folders contain documents and setting of IE, MAIL etc.
 
if you keep mp'3 in the "my music" folder or jpegs in the "my pictues" folder they will be gone too.
 
Docs and Settings is still used in Vista, even with the Users folder down at the bottom. It's used for some Application Data folders and downloads for programs.
 
detritus said:
On Vista I think the Documents and Settings folder is just a link to the Users folder. Probably there for backward compatibility with older programs that don't use proper methods for determining certain file system locations.

You can probably put it back using mklink

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link
Click to expand...

Have to agree with you about the backward compatibility part
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=520082&SiteID=17
http://www.svrops.com/svrops/articles/jpoints.htm

Have been going through the start menu all programs seems to be working, pictures and music everything there..

As I said I was just removing stuff from the hard drive to make space for backing up some programs from the 160GB SATA before I format it, to install Vista on it.
So no big train smash was just wondering about how important to folder was, because Vista works ok without it..
I know where all the stuff for the user are saved in C:\Users.. all my docs, pics and music & savegames all still there.
 
yeah, just checked on my work machine, open command prompt and type dir /a, and you will see that Document and Settings is set up as a junction point to Users


Code: 
c:\>dir /a
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is B419-A4AA

 Directory of c:\

2008/08/08  07:47    <DIR>          $Recycle.Bin
2006/09/18  23:43                24 autoexec.bat
2008/07/04  11:08    <DIR>          Boot
2008/01/18  23:45           333 203 bootmgr
2008/07/03  21:34             8 192 BOOTSECT.BAK
2006/09/18  23:43                10 config.sys
[B]2006/11/02  15:01    <JUNCTION>     Documents and Settings [C:\Users][/B]
2008/07/04  12:23    <DIR>          inetpub
2008/07/03  11:54    <DIR>          MSOCache
2008/10/10  08:24     3 800 784 896 pagefile.sys
2008/07/04  11:02    <DIR>          PerfLogs
2008/10/10  08:20    <DIR>          Program Files
2008/10/07  14:04    <DIR>          ProgramData
2008/09/04  07:17    <DIR>          Python25
2008/10/13  00:00    <DIR>          System Volume Information
2008/08/08  07:47    <DIR>          Users
2008/09/29  07:12    <DIR>          Windows
               5 File(s)  3 801 126 325 bytes
              17 Dir(s)  102 545 588 224 bytes free
 
detritus said:
yeah, just checked on my work machine, open command prompt and type dir /a, and you will see that Document and Settings is set up as a junction point to Users
Click to expand...

Yep. As such, it can be deleted without deleting data. There may be some issues with older programs that have "C:\Documents and Settings" hardcoded, but there can't be too many of those (because D & S can be changed from the default location anyway).
 
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