Guest James Posted October 10, 2008 Posted October 10, 2008 I got this machine off ebay with XP already installed. When I look under "documents and settings", there seem to be a lot of user folders with basically the same set of subfolders i.e. Application Data, Cookies, Desktop, Favorites, Local Settings, My Documents, NetHood, etc. How many sets of these are there supposed to be? Right now under documents and settings there are 7 of these folders - Administrator, All Users, All users.windows, Default User, Default User.Windows, mike, Mike.Mike-(followed by some nums and letters), Mike~1~MIK Except for the last one Mike~1~MIK, they all have many of the above mentioned subfolders - Favorites, Local Settings, etc. Some are empty, some aren't. Why would there be so many redundant folders like this? It makes searching for some things a pain. Is there a way to consolidate, get rid of some of them without messing things up? Thanks for all assistance.
Guest Olórin Posted October 10, 2008 Posted October 10, 2008 Re: How many user folders are supposed to be under "Documents and settings"? Re: How many user folders are supposed to be under "Documents and settings"? "James" <muzician21@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:c9454e89-8b14-45c6-984c-efda56eded21@w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com... >I got this machine off ebay with XP already installed. When I look > under "documents and settings", there seem to be a lot of user folders > with basically the same set of subfolders i.e. > Application Data, Cookies, Desktop, Favorites, Local Settings, My > Documents, NetHood, etc. > > How many sets of these are there supposed to be? Right now under > documents and settings there are 7 of these folders - Administrator, > All Users, All users.windows, Default User, Default User.Windows, > mike, Mike.Mike-(followed by some nums and letters), Mike~1~MIK > > Except for the last one Mike~1~MIK, they all have many of the above > mentioned subfolders - Favorites, Local Settings, etc. Some are > empty, some aren't. > > Why would there be so many redundant folders like this? It makes > searching for some things a pain. Is there a way to consolidate, get > rid of some of them without messing things up? > > Thanks for all assistance. It's been used, it's not a fresh install, so my advice would be: 1) If you've been given the capability of wiping and reinstalling XP from scratch, do that (having backed up any files you created and need to keep). 2) If you haven't been given that capability, seek to obtain it from the seller, then do (1). 3) If you *really* can't do the above for any reasons: log on as administrator and delete all accounts as appearing in Control Panel > User Accounts. Create one for yourself, log in and use that. Do as thorough a check as you can - who knows what's on it? Viruses, spyware, keyloggers, rootkits, illegal files, pirated software, auto-starting apps you don't want hogging resources, etc etc. But you really would be *much* better off starting over, IMO.
Guest Don Phillipson Posted October 10, 2008 Posted October 10, 2008 Re: How many user folders are supposed to be under "Documents and settings"? Re: How many user folders are supposed to be under "Documents and settings"? > "James" <muzician21@yahoo.com> wrote in message > news:c9454e89-8b14-45c6-984c-efda56eded21@w1g2000prk.googlegroups.com... > >I got this machine off ebay with XP already installed. When I look > > under "documents and settings", there seem to be a lot of user folders > > with basically the same set of subfolders i.e. > > Application Data, Cookies, Desktop, Favorites, Local Settings, My > > Documents, NetHood, etc. > > > > How many sets of these are there supposed to be? Right now under > > documents and settings there are 7 of these folders - Administrator, > > All Users, All users.windows, Default User, Default User.Windows, > > mike, Mike.Mike-(followed by some nums and letters), Mike~1~MIK "Olórin" <incanus@erkljrjre890aeraekj4na.com> wrote in message news:%231VVCcsKJHA.5460@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl... > It's been used, it's not a fresh install, so my advice would be: > > 1) If you've been given the capability of wiping and reinstalling XP from > scratch, do that (having backed up any files you created and need to keep). > . . . > 3) If you *really* can't do the above for any reasons: log on as > administrator and delete all accounts as appearing in Control Panel > User > Accounts. Create one for yourself, log in and use that. Do as thorough a > check as you can - who knows what's on it? Viruses, spyware, keyloggers, > rootkits, illegal files, pirated software, auto-starting apps you don't want > hogging resources, etc etc. But you really would be *much* better off > starting over, IMO. The main question is whether you want to save Folders and Documents (and settings) as currently used by either Administrator or whichever User you are every day. If so, you can use the F&D Wizard (customizable) to save data to the hard drive, then create new users (Admin or Mike or both). You can then reinstal if you like: then import (via Wizard) your settings for the new user(s), and only lastly erase the unwanted old users. -- Don Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)
Guest Big_Al Posted October 10, 2008 Posted October 10, 2008 Re: How many user folders are supposed to be under "Documents andsettings"? James wrote: > I got this machine off ebay with XP already installed. When I look > under "documents and settings", there seem to be a lot of user folders > with basically the same set of subfolders i.e. > Application Data, Cookies, Desktop, Favorites, Local Settings, My > Documents, NetHood, etc. > > How many sets of these are there supposed to be? Right now under > documents and settings there are 7 of these folders - Administrator, > All Users, All users.windows, Default User, Default User.Windows, > mike, Mike.Mike-(followed by some nums and letters), Mike~1~MIK > > Except for the last one Mike~1~MIK, they all have many of the above > mentioned subfolders - Favorites, Local Settings, etc. Some are > empty, some aren't. > > Why would there be so many redundant folders like this? It makes > searching for some things a pain. Is there a way to consolidate, get > rid of some of them without messing things up? > > Thanks for all assistance. All the other good advice not withstanding, the number of folders in documents and settings is dependent upon how many programs you have that want to store stuff in there. Its your documents and settings so if you take that to an extreme, then every program would write a "setting" there. And since each user has a folder, that makes it just great for each program to save a different set of settings per user. The scheme may seem redundant to you, in your world, but if I have 4 people using my PC, I don't want everyone having the same IE favorites right? If you reload as Olorin suggested, life will be easier & more logical.
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