TC Pathnames/ My Documents folder etc on Windows XP

[Robert_Charlton]

I'm in the process of moving from a Windows 9x system to a new computer with Windows XP. I've just learned a bit about XP's default pathname for the "My Documents" folder that raises some questions... about pathnames as will be seen by TC, ultimately about the difference between dragging and dropping in Windows XP versus copying with Total Commander.

I think I'd better understand what's going on before I migrate to the new computer and copy over the bulk of my data, which I'd planned to do with Total Commander, not with a mouse and Explorer.

I know that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and I haven't used XP... but here is what I've been told and read. Please advise what's correct and what's not correct....

a) By default, on XP, the Target or actual location of the My Documents folder is C:\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents

b) But I've also been told that in Windows Explorer, what you see is C:\My Documents, and that if you Drag and Drop your files to the apparent My Documents, they get copied to the right place.

c) I understand further that you can change the Target location by right-clicking My Documents, clicking the target tab, and specifying a new folder.

If the above is not correct, some of my questions might not apply....

How does Total Commander see this directory?
Assuming (b) above is correct, will Total Commander 6.03 see the "real" pathname, C:\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents, rather than the "aliased" C:\My Documents?

Dragging and dropping in Windows Explorer vrs copying with TC?
Also, does XP treat files dragged and dropped into this "My Documents" directory, via Explorer, differently from files copied into it?

I'm thinking here about the way "C:\windows\fonts" behaves on 9x. It's kind of a virtual directory situation... you get a very different file view of the Fonts directory in Windows Explorer than in Total Commander... and (and this is very important), if you copy a font into C:\windows\fonts using TC, it does not install, whereas if you drag and drop it using Explorer, it does.

Pathnames and migration of data...
I'm about to migrate to the new machine and had planned to have the system builder to copy over all of my old data to, say, a D partition. Then, after installing Total Commander, I was going to copy over the My Documents folder on D to C:\My Documents. I'd hope to preserve my current data file structure (as well as all my shortcuts, including those configured on my Directory Hotlist, on my toolbar, etc) on C, and also keep a backup on D until I had everything working.

Preserving the data file structure is particularly important, as otherwise I'll be spending a month just typing in new pathnames on shortcuts, in miscellaneous program settings, etc.

I'm also concerned with the length of pathnames. When I've gone several directories deep in 9x, I've need to shorten some filenames for TC to work. I don't know whether this was a Windows or a TC limitation... and I don't know whether this might give me problems... perhaps make some current data innaccessible, when I move it to "C:\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents" in XP.

Reluctant to mess with defaults...
I should add that I'm totally new to XP and shy enough about the Registry in general that I don't want to try any directory hacks, etc. I've learned that messing with Windows defaults can come back to bite you, so I'm even reluctant to simply change the Target location for My Documents. Also, my guess is that if I changed it actually to C:\My Documents, there'd be a conflict of sorts. Thoughts on this in this situation?

I hope I haven't painted myself into a corner here. Can't imagine using a computer without Total Commander. This new twist in Windows comes as a big surprise. Would appreciate comments as soon as possible, as I'd been scheduled to migrate data today... something I obviously haven't done.

[Leif]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
OK utilities! Check them out! Especially Tweak UI.

[Leif]

"I know that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"

Read a lot, have we?

[Robert_Charlton]

Read a lot, have we?

Leif... Too much and not enough.

I took a quick look at the PowerToys page and there's remarkably little description about what Tweak UI will do for me. I don't have an XP system here to open the file to find out... only my old computer.

Once I schedule a system install session with the system builder, I'm perhaps going to be stuck with the consequences of what I do... and there's lots of time pressure involved. If you could perhaps give me a few sentences about your perspective on the problem and what Tweak UI will enable me to do to address it, I'd be most grateful.

Thanks,

Bob

[Wilhelm M.]

Hi Robert,
I'm using TC with Windows XP (on my son's computer) and I think most of your worries are unnecessary.
1) TC "sees" the real directories, don't worry. But, of course, you can only open them all if you are logged in as adminstrator, otherwise only your own directories. That's one of the main differences between 9x and NT-based systems.
2) In XP it is very simple to change the location of your "My Doc"-Folder and, thereby, shorten the pathname. E.g. if you move the folder from "c:\documents and settings\...." to e.g D:\MyData you have significantly shorter pathnames and do not run into problems with TC. Note: this is a system option, NOT a "hack" of any kind. So you can safely do that.
3) TC has an internal restriction to pathnames shorter than (I think) 255 characters. This was discussed in many threads, but mainly in the German forum. Does not seem that Christian is going to change that restriction in the near future, so we have to live with it.

Hope there's someting for you in the above...

[Lefteous]

2Robert_Charlton
Hello,

a) By default, on XP, the Target or actual location of the My Documents folder is C:\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents

Yes that's right - at least on an English XP system.

b) But I've also been told that in Windows Explorer, what you see is C:\My Documents, and that if you Drag and Drop your files to the apparent My Documents, they get copied to the right place.

That's wrong. In Explorer "My documents" is placed below the "Desktop" folder. Microsoft introduced virtual folders like Desktop, My Documents and many more. Mostbut not all of them have corresponding physical directory path. As some users before wrote it's possible to change these paths. But changing such a page will not change the relative position to the Desktop virtual folder.
Please keep in mind that Windows XP is multi user operating system. Multiple users can be logged in at at the same time. It would be difficult to have adirectory like C:\Documents to handle this. But the virtual folder "My documents" can be placed below the Desktop virtual folder for every user, right?

c) I understand further that you can change the Target location by right-clicking My Documents, clicking the target tab, and specifying a new folder.

Yes but that only works for the virtual folder "My documents".

power-users will be aware of the existence of a modifier key

Maybe you want to try my tool "Long Pathnames". It's a filesystem plugin for Total Commander. It shows the path length in the column where the size is shown normally. It's escpecially useful when you use it in search. You may enter a size in bytes to specify the searched path length) like >240. Searching will give you the path length which are greater than 240 chars.

Download:
www.lefteous.de/tc/archives/longpaths/longpaths_1_02.zip

The plugin has a bug. You should open an extra Total Commander instance where you don't do any productive work (the bug is that file once accessed by the plugin cannot be opened until the Total Commander instance is closed. Shame on me that I haven't released the version where I fixed the bug....

The plugin will be replaced by a similar plugin...

[Wilhelm M.]

Hi Leftous,

>Yes but that only works for the virtual folder "My documents".<

Yes, but you can move your user folder to another location. Somewhere in the user settings you can re-define your My Doc directory and the system asks you if your data should be moved to the new directory. This is done with the real directory, not only with the virtual folder. I'm absolutely shure about that, I've done it and it was not problem at all.

[SanskritFritz]

Wilhelm is right, i have done this also, no problem. TweakUI is indispensable

[leopoldus]

2Wilhelm M.

TC has an internal restriction to pathnames shorter than (I think) 255 characters. This was discussed in many threads, but mainly in the German forum.

Soory, have not found any in English. Could you give a link or describe very shortly this resstriction?

2Lefteous
Your LongPaths plug-in is very useful thing. But it would be even better, if it would have an option to return filenames without paths as well.

[Lefteous]

2Wilhelm M.

Yes, but you can move your user folder to another location. Somewhere in the user settings you can re-define your My Doc directory and the system asks you if your data should be moved to the new directory. This is done with the real directory, not only with the virtual folder. I'm absolutely shure about that, I've done it and it was not problem at all.

I was just refrerring to the possibilty to right click on the "My documents" icon, activate properties and move to another direction using the button in this dialog.

The automatical changing of the path assigment for "My documents" is AFAIK always performed when move the physical folder "My Documents" using the Explorer copy method.


2leopoldus

Your LongPaths plug-in is very useful thing. But it would be even better, if it would have an option to return filenames without paths as well.

Time will tell

Soory, have not found any in English. Could you give a link or describe very shortly this resstriction?

The maximum is 259 characters including the root (C:\ for example).

[Wilhelm M.]

Hello Leopoldus,

not much to explain here. TC does not support filenames (pathes included) longer than about 259 (I was wrong in my first posting) characters. It's that simple.
Here's a link to a thread where Christian comments on that subject:

http://www.ghisler.ch/board/viewtopic.php?t=1614.

Christian says that the problem arises from the Windows ANSI definition which sets the limit of 259 characters.

[Robert_Charlton]

To get back on after struggling with XP and new software for a week and a half ... thanks to everyone for your help. I wouldn't be able to be using my system right now without Total Commander.

Incidentally, I was responding on this thread when the board went down. The following, from an email I sent to Total Commander Tech Support, should be self-explanatory...

To alert you that while I was just posting on your Total Commander bulletin board, it suddenly stopped accepting messages and all the threads disappeared.  

When I returned to the forum home page, I saw that it was hacked while I was posting.   Very strange, and sad that people will do these things.  

I hope you can easily reinstall and restore the information.... it's already been very useful to me.

The major addition I have to instructions everyone gave me is that, when upgrading from Windows Commander to Total Commander, the user icons on the main toolbar won't display unless you change the program name (which is in the path name to the icons... Maybe someone else can state it more clearly). Everything else seemed to be backwardly compatible and works fine.

I have some XP/Total Commander questions that I'll ask on new threads, but I wanted to say thanks here.

[ghisler(Author)]

The major addition I have to instructions everyone gave me is that, when upgrading from Windows Commander to Total Commander, the user icons on the main toolbar won't display unless you change the program name (which is in the path name to the icons... Maybe someone else can state it more clearly). Everything else seemed to be backwardly compatible and works fine.

I cannot reproduce this problem. Has anyone else been able to reproduce it?

[Robert_Charlton]

The necessary change was in Default.bar.

In order for the folder icons for shortcuts on the right side of the toolbar to display, I had to change, for example...

button17=c:\program files\totalcmd\WINCMD32.EXE,1

to...

button17=c:\Program Files\TotalCmd\TOTALCMD.EXE,1

Before the change, if I moused over where the icons had been in the previous install, I could see the tooltips displaying the names I'd given the target directories. Unfortunately, I didn't try clicking to see if the shortcuts would work without the icons; that would have been interesting. But, basically, I just saw the blank bar, as if the icons were there but transparent.