Moving XP Folder And Share With Vista

Hi there, reading Christers Sticky regarding moving XP Folders, I am in need for further information.
To just quickly explain my current status and what I would like to achieve.
I have re-organized one of my systems as it stands now I have 2 SATA HDD both in separate mobile racks one has XP Pro installed NTFS, and the other has Vista installed also NTFS file system. I would like to mention that both operating systems work fine by pulling out of the caddy the one not in use, very easy switch over from XP to Vista.
I now intend (would like to) install a fixed IDE HDD and move the XP My Documents and Vistas Documents to this drive and to be able to access the folder from both operating systems like Pictures Music Videos and the like.
XP as in Christers guide has the option to move, but this option I can not find in Vista. Is there a way to get Vista's Documents Folder onto that separate drive and for Vista to find it again without having to point it there.
In short two operating systems sharing one My Documents Folder.
Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
hawk22

 

Might be tricky Hawk, because My Documents, My Pictures, etc are what might be termed system folders.

In Vista go to Help and Support, search for "Redirecting a folder to a new location ".

Also look at 'Troubleshoot "access denied" when opening files and folders'.

A way I think would work best would be to clone the Win XP drive to the Vista drive (you would lose the current Vista). Then install Vista as an upgrade of that version of Win XP. Vista will then redirect all it's links to the old My Documents folder (which will be on the separate HDD). Just my theory.

Matt

 

When I was dual bootingXP and Vista, I moved the Vista My Docs folder in its entirety to they second partition on the drive with Vista. Every now and then some software would get confused, but Vista never did, and XP could find the folders just fine, too. YMMV
Johanna

 

Hi Johanna, and Matt; thank you both for your replies very much appreciated.
Matt since opening this Thread I have found some more information, it looks as if Vista is very good at hiding things. There is a good guide on this link:
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/...os-games-and-other-personal-folders-location/
Johanna, may I ask you some questions, what was your main reason to stop dual booting XP and Vista, my reason for trying this setup is to avoid dual booting.
Going by your other Thread with the Registry Hack for moving files I have already downloaded that, I think it is great thank you for that, you are on Vista now I presume.
I am working on hopefully to make this setup work, but I will need a lot of help to get there, I am also very lucky to have noahdfear giving his great knowledge on this.
Any advise and experience on this will be greatly appreciated.

 

I am not dual booting anymore because my primary XP Pro drive failed with no warning, and the damage was so bad that Vista couldn't retrieve my files. Noahdfear and I spent all night doing data recovery (I'm ashamed to say I let my backups kinda slide witht he two drives) and I said a lot of bad words. My older hardware couldn't run Vista the way it was intended to be used, so I bought a new computer. In the meantime, I've been liking Vista more and more, so when I do add the next drive to the system, I doubt I will even put XP on it. There are other computers in the house running XP if I really need it. The only thing I "lost" by giving up XP was Adobe Acrobat 6, (not compatible) but I've found some free substitutes for making pdfs that work fine in Vista. When I was dual booting, I was booting into XP 95% of the time, and XP and Vista could see each others' files just fine, but to switch OS I had to change the boot drive in the BIOS. Vista is finding My Docs etc just fine on the second partition again.
Johanna
(who owes Noahdfear some peanut butter cookies...)

 

Thank you Johanna, at the moment I am in the middle of installing SP1 on my Vista and I do hope that it will still run when it has finished. When I had asked Dave on whether to install it or just go for the regular updates he suggested the SP1 install so here I go. I am a complete novice when it comes to Vista I have never before used it and really still have not. I have no programs installed on this Vista apart from a AV I wanted to wait till I know exactly what to do and what to expect with this setup.
I need to learn and get experience with Vista and thought by having Vista at home will provide me with the opportunity.
In your opinion if I may ask if I would create a new Folder on the separate IDE drive and say call it "Combo Documents" would you move the XP My Documents there first or the Vista Documents. I don't know if there needs to be a certain routine.
Good news Vista has just finished installing SP1 and all appears to be OK.
It seems that you had a similar experience with dual boot like what I had dual booting 98SE with XP that is why I didn't want to do that again.
regards
hawk22

 

Hey Hawk- since you don't plan to dual boot anymore, why don't you move the vista docs, the open XP docs, select all (control +a) and mover (merge) them into the Vista docs. It should be easy to sort by "date created ". Just a thought.
Johanna