It’s a Microsoft Consipiracy!!

I may be very, very wrong here, but it sure does look like what follows is true. At any rate, its not illogical, so in all likelihood I’m not (no matter how much it looks like it :P) going off the deep end here..

Microsoft is going to dump the My Documents Folder!!

That said, I had better explain myself, real quick too….

For the last so-many builds, CTPs, and Betas, the My Documents folder (or simply ‘Documents’ as Microsoft claimed it will rename it) has not appeared on the desktop.. Checking and double checking settings, the registry, etc. all point to it being there… except its not… The bug reports filed come back as “Known Issue..” OK, fine it was a known issue in 5112 (Beta 1)… And 5219 you say?? Weird :S

It’s not 5231? Let’s bug it again… “Known Issue…” I’m getting a bit frustrated here, so I make a shortcut, remove the arrow, give it a custom icon, make it use a script to position itself above the other icons… and wait for 5270 (The current build).

Well, 5270 is here.. And you guessed it, the My Documents Folder is not there :(

But I have more evidence than a single unimportant bug that is too easy to fix for the beta team to take the time out and work on it… I do have more; honest.

In 5270, in the path “C:\Users\” (The new “Documents and Settings” Folder.. Much nicer :D) in the users’ subfolder, there is the normal My Documents folder (christened ‘Documents’ as mentioned above), and inside it are what you would expect: “My Pictures,” “My Music,” and the rest… Except did I just say “My?!” obviously this is the wrong folder.. A ‘dummy’ if you will..

What do you know? In “C:\Users\%Username%\” there happens to be a “Music” folder and a “Pictures” folder!!! Not “My Pictures” but “Pictures.” Not “My Music” but….

Can you guess where pictures saved in Microsoft Paint (the same paint since Windows 3.1, but with default PNG support now!) go by default? Yep, it’s the C:\Users\USERNAME\Pictures folder… How about WMP? Where does that look for music? I don’t think there is a need to say it… (But then again, just in case… It’s “C:\Users\USERNAME\Music\”)

In short, Microsoft is replacing the My Documents folder for Virtual Folders. Harsh, eh? Well, it had to come out sooner or later, so it may as well….

Keep in mind, this is all (highly logical, suspected, and obviously correct) conjecture…

We may be wrong, Microsoft may yet change its mind, Pig’s may fly (anyone else see the flying cows in 3D Mark ’05?), and I will end up being wrong… But that’s quite OK :)

A couple more points/ponders to mull over

• There is no (working) reference to the “Documents” folder ANYWHERE in the UI.
• Microsoft is testing out how we react to this change in the Beta versions (namely weaning us from excessive *cough* ~20 GB *cough* usage of the My Docs folder!)…
• In the folder tree on the side of the save dialog, there is no ‘Documents’
• Why this is a big deal??
• It enables you to share files and folders across different partitions.. Both Vista, 2k, 2k3 Server, and XP on my rig have the directory “D:\Documents” set as the My Documents folder.
• Virtual Folders are fine and dandy, but when it comes to the bunch of files that I have no idea what program they open with, unclassified files, crap in general, and?a bunch of miscellaneous files that aren’t even mine… Where do they go??