# When the FUCK did "My Documents" become a junk pile?? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 30, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175 "2004-12-30T00:44:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sir\_Dirx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Sir\_Dirx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Dirx)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/1 "2004-12-30T00:44:53Z")
What’s the hell is up with this new trend? I installed Sims 2 recently, and apparently it simply _has_ to install crap into the “My Documents” folder! I’m sorry, what?? It’s called **MY** DOCUMENTS for a reason, goddammit! It’s my OWN personalized folder for what I make, collect, and keep. Mine! It is NOT a communal dumping ground for programmers to leave heaps of random-ass files! Can I simply move the offending folders? Of course not! The game will either make new ones in their stead or just outright crash. Same goes for deleting them. How about something in the game’s options? Can I change the directories there, like any decent program would allow? Not a chance. As long as I want to keep playing the game (and I do; it _is_ a very good game), I have to put up with this crap cluttering up MY Documents. It’s not just Sims that does it. This happened before with Paint Shop Pro. My solution? Uninstall PSP and switch to Adobe Photoshop. Myst IV has also decided that My Documents is the best place to leave all the save files and everything else. WHY?? What good do they do in My Documents? Why couldn’t they just stay in the Program Files folder? Dammit, when I’m installing a program and assign it destination path, _everything better go to that directory!_ Did I give the OK for dumping shit into My Documents? No? THEN DON’T PUT IT THERE!! I’ve done a bit of searching and haven’t found a workaround yet… The Sims2 website is a bug-riddled pile of garbage, so it’s no help. Can’t register, so no asking on the forums; and the “fill out this form to contact us” link is conveniently not working. Why do programmers do this? Do these files just not work if they’re in the same directory as the rest of the program? Is it supposed to be convenient to have largely-uneditable (I don’t care if that’s not a real word) files hanging around there? Or are the programmers simply malicious bastards out to piss me off? _ARG!_ ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/2 "2004-12-30T00:48:25Z")
Apparently someone decided that save game files are a type of document, so why not put all your game documents with all your other documents? There’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to specify the save game directory other than laziness on their part. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/3 "2004-12-30T01:16:57Z")
Why not just save your documents someplace else? I assume that all default Windows folders will be screwed with and don’t use them. Wordprocessing documents go in directories with names like Rants, or Ramblings. Images go in directories with names like, Looky, and AAArgh! . Miscelaneous stuff goes in directories like Idunno. It’s just so much easier to find things this way. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/4 "2004-12-30T01:20:07Z")
Drives me nuts, too. I’ve got a big hard drive and a little hard drive. Windows lives on the little hard driver, and everything else lives on the big hard drive. It’s always worked out fine. Except this goddamned stupid crap ass move by the Sims. I don’t have room on the little harddrive for all that crap, and it keep shoving stuff on to my 100mgs free hard disk when there is a perfectly good disk with gigs and gigs of space I planned specifically for my big games and stuff. Why won’t it let me decide where crap goes on my system? I can’t play the fucking game because of this stupid thing, and it drives me nuts because I have all the space in the world, just not on that drive. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Dirx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Sir\_Dirx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Dirx)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/5 "2004-12-30T05:27:17Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Why not just save your documents someplace else? I assume that all default Windows folders will be screwed with and don’t use them. > > Wordprocessing documents go in directories with names like Rants, or Ramblings. > > Images go in directories with names like, Looky, and AAArgh! . > > Miscelaneous stuff goes in directories like Idunno. > > It’s just so much easier to find things this way. But, see, My Documents has always been the easiest way to find things. All my stuff is in all sorts of nice little folders there. It’s just that now those folders have a bunch of annoying neighbors. Moving everything out would be like moving out of my bedroom because everyone wants to store their junk in it. I’ll consider it as a last resort, if I can’t find some other solution, but I’m not particularly keen on it. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/6 "2004-12-30T05:33:14Z")
Can’t you move all the Sims stuff into a subfolder in My Documents? ---
**Author:** ![Toddly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/22d042/32.png) [@Toddly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toddly)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/7 "2004-12-30T06:15:10Z")
> [@even sven](#): > > Drives me nuts, too. > > I’ve got a big hard drive and a little hard drive. Windows lives on the little hard driver, and everything else lives on the big hard drive. It’s always worked out fine. > > Except this goddamned stupid crap ass move by the Sims. I don’t have room on the little harddrive for all that crap, and it keep shoving stuff on to my 100mgs free hard disk when there is a perfectly good disk with gigs and gigs of space I planned specifically for my big games and stuff. Why won’t it let me decide where crap goes on my system? I can’t play the fucking game because of this stupid thing, and it drives me nuts because I have all the space in the world, just not on that drive. I don’t much care for the My Documents Folder at all but you can [move](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310147/EN-US/) its target location to another drive if you want to. You need to be using Win XP. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/8 "2004-12-30T22:58:49Z")
Sorry to disagree, but I think My Docs is an excellent place to put game savefiles and similar things. When I do a backup on my PC, I just grab that My Docs folder and dump it onto either an external hard drive or a DVD. Having everything in one place makes it possible to do painless backups and restores, should they ever be needed. ---
**Author:** ![Maxxxie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f14d63/32.png) [@Maxxxie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maxxxie)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/9 "2004-12-31T07:11:03Z")
> [@Toddly](#): > > I don’t much care for the My Documents Folder at all but you can [move](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310147/EN-US/) its target location to another drive if you want to. You need to be using Win XP. \ This method of “moving” the My Documents folder also works in Windows 2000. \ Max. ---
**Author:** ![if6was9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@if6was9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/if6was9)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/10 "2004-12-31T07:30:00Z")
> [@Sir Dirx](#): > > I’m sorry, what?? It’s called **MY** DOCUMENTS for a reason, goddammit! It’s my OWN personalized folder for what I make, collect, and keep. Mine!\* Um. No. You read that wrong. They’re not YOUR documents, or YOUR computer. That is Bill’s message to all of us. Bill Gates: "This is “MY COMPUTER.” “MY DOCUMENTS.” “MY PICTURES.” etc. If you believe otherwise, you’re just fooling yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/11 "2004-12-31T07:35:01Z")
One reason they do it like that is for multiple-user OSes; they don’t want you to be able to use another player’s saved game, or accidentally save over (e.g.) “Chicago (a SimCity I spent eighty-five weeks perfecting)” with “Chicago (a big flat piece of land near a lake with no buildings yet)”. So they use the operating system’s built-in process for segregating user-privileged documents. I’m the only user on my machine, and it pisses me off, too. Do you use different partitions for different tasks, too? C: for SYSTEM, D: for PROGRAMS, E: for MEDIA, F: for DOCS, P: for PAGEFILE, and so on? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/12 "2004-12-31T13:49:05Z")
I tried moving the target, but somehow it didn’t work right and I couldn’t get the game to run until I put it back. Hopefully new hard drive is coming soon… ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Dirx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Sir\_Dirx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Dirx)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2004, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/13 "2004-12-31T21:25:00Z")
> [@Jurph](#): > > Do you use different partitions for different tasks, too? C: for SYSTEM, D: for PROGRAMS, E: for MEDIA, F: for DOCS, P: for PAGEFILE, and so on? I’ve only got the one hard drive; the others are just the usual disk drives. Though if I did, I probably would group it something like that. And **EddyTeddyFreddy** , they are in their own subfolders, but I still don’t like that. If this trend continues with each new program I install, then eventually I end up with tons of these folders nestled among my regular ones, cluttering up the place much more than necessary. Sure, the few extra folders I have there now aren’t a huge problem by themselves, but down the road it could be much worse. I figured I’d try and nip the problem in the bud before that happens. Moving My Docuements might work, I think. If I move it to just _C:\My Documents_, the games and stuff would still install stuff into the _C:\Documents and Settings[my name]\My Documents_, right? Make sure the game stuff is in that latter destination still, while I use the new location… Sounds like it would work, right? (I hope it would; I’m 90% of the way through Myst IV, and I’d hate to have to redo it again should the save games stop working! :eek: ) ---
**Author:** ![Armilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e19b73/32.png) [@Armilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Armilla)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/14 "2005-01-01T01:32:49Z")
I think this kind of thing has come about because of the Windows application guidelines changing. It is no longer guaranteed that non-administrative users will have write access to any part of the harddisk except the temporary files folder and the subfolders of their profile (My Documents etc). Apps should no longer store their persisted data in their program directory and should use the user’s profile instead. There is a folder (“Application Data”) provided for data that the user can’t see - they really should be using this, but they may have taken the decision to put stuff in My Documents because people want to be able to back up their saved games. It’s a judgement call on the part of the game developer - some of their customers may have been asking for it. ---
**Author:** ![Sir\_Dirx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Sir\_Dirx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sir_Dirx)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/15 "2005-01-01T01:38:17Z")
Then at the very least, they should include an option for the rest of us who don’t want that. I can’t imagine that’d be very hard. ---
**Author:** ![Futile\_Gesture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f05b48/32.png) [@Futile\_Gesture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Futile_Gesture)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2005, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/16 "2005-01-01T19:44:43Z")
Agree 100% with the OP. Any decent application would let you configure where this stuff goes and it would ask first. And the same goes for all applications that take it upon themselves to create further “My” folders, because they know better than you where you should be keeping things. And don’t get me started on the whole “My” naming convention. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/17 "2005-01-02T07:35:20Z")
> [@Sir Dirx](#): > > Moving My Docuements might work, I think. If I move it to just _C:\My Documents_, the games and stuff would still install stuff into the _C:\Documents and Settings[my name]\My Documents_, right? Make sure the game stuff is in that latter destination still, while I use the new location… Sounds like it would work, right? (I hope it would; I’m 90% of the way through Myst IV, and I’d hate to have to redo it again should the save games stop working! :eek: ) As to the issue of not wanting to move your “real” documents, because My Documents is convienent to get to: There are a couple of things you can do to mitigate this problem. First, you can create a link in the official My Documents folder to point to your real documents folder. This means, you can get to your real folder with just one extra click. Second, you can run the program ‘tweakui’ to add your real folder as a full-fledged special folder. Run tweakui, pick the “Common Dialogs-\>Places Bar” option and then add your folder to the list. Now, when you get a dialog like File Open, it will list your folder on the left side of the dialog along with Desktop, My Documents, etc. Also, the tweakui program has options for moving the special folders like My Documents, My Music, etc. It might be easier to do it with this program instead of following the instructions on the above link. After all of this though, I vote with **gotpasswords**. Anything I can do to simplify backups of user data - the better. Also, a word of warning related to what **Armilla** said. For computers with XP using drives with NTFS, the My Documents folder has restricted security priviledges. Copying and moving them to another place will keep those permissions. So if you try to manually share files on a system with two users and you can’t figure out why one user can’t see files you copied to c:\ - that might be the problem. I’ve bitten myself on this a few times. [This](http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx) is the link to tweakui for XP. There are different versions for all versions of Windows. Just google for other flavors. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/18 "2005-01-02T07:52:00Z")
> [@Armilla](#): > > I think this kind of thing has come about because of the Windows application guidelines changing. > > It is no longer guaranteed that non-administrative users will have write access to any part of the harddisk except the temporary files folder and the subfolders of their profile (My Documents etc). > > Apps should no longer store their persisted data in their program directory and should use the user’s profile instead. There is a folder (“Application Data”) provided for data that the user can’t see - they really should be using this, but they may have taken the decision to put stuff in My Documents because people want to be able to back up their saved games. > > It’s a judgement call on the part of the game developer - some of their customers may have been asking for it. …this is the answer. When they did the systems upgrade at Parliament a few years ago, everything that was on my desk-top disappeared. I mean-EVERYTHING, from sub-folders to rosters to Banquet Event Orders to Invoices:damm near everything. When I contacted the IT department they said to me “well, why didn’t you have those documents saved in your “my documents” file?” I got all my files back-but now all of my folders on the Desktop are links to documents in my “My Folders” ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Badger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/848f3c/32.png) [@Dead\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Badger)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/19 "2005-01-02T11:58:44Z")
> [@Futile Gesture](#): > > And don’t get me started on the whole “My” naming convention. Too late, you set me off. My “My Documents” (argh) contains the following "My"s: My eBooks My Data Sources My Games My Music My Pictures My Received Files My Shapes My Virtual Machines I want only two of these, Pictures and Music. I know at least two (eBooks and Data Sources) are protected by the operating system and are undeletable. The Virtual Machines one is a product of Virtual PC, and can’t be changed, being recreated every time I run the program. Ditto “My Shapes”, created unchangeably by Visio. The only changeable one is My Received Files, which this thread has just inspired me to finally delete. Bah, I say! Who are you, you cocky programmers, to decide that I must want shitty data files from _your_ program in prime real estate in the middle of my filing system? Cock off, and take your stupid bloody eBooks with you. I don’t even have any, nor any intention of getting them. Verily, they are so crap that I can’t even wipe my arse on them in disdain. ---
**Author:** ![Zcrysis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zcrysis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zcrysis)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2005, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175/20 "2005-01-02T13:57:43Z")
A simpler solution would be to just hide the files/folders installed by the game. They then stop being visible to you, and your My Documents become usable and uncluttered once more. The game usually wont care or notice that the folder is hidden, as long as it still exists. Just right click, go to preferences, and check the hidden tab. Apply it to just the folder, and youre good to go. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-the-fuck-did-my-documents-become-a-junk-pile/282175.md?page=2)