My Documents Folder - Path different to folder name

In Windows 7 I had moved My Documents to My D:\ drive and called it "Docs". I have since added other folders (for my wife and kids) so have renamed it with my name "Ciaran"

In both Windows 7 and Windows 10, the display folder name was "Ciaran" but the path is D:\Docs when I look in the address bar of Windows Explorer.

How do I change the folder path to Ciaran i.e. D:\Ciaran?

Interestingly if I rename it to Ciaran1 the path becomes D:\Ciaran1 but reverts to D:\Docs if I rename it back to Docs.This is incorrect - even when renaming the folder the path remains D:\Docs but the desktop.ini for the folder changes the LocalizedResourceName to Ciaran1

Presumably it is some registry setting but not sure where to look and it could take a while to find it.

PowerShell:

PS D:\> ls Directory: D:\
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
d----- 05/07/2019 17:18 Folder1
d-r--- 14/01/2020 23:42 Docs
d----- 13/12/2019 23:18 Folder2
d----- 08/10/2019 08:53 Folder3
da---- 25/10/2019 16:33 Folder4

D:\ desktop.ini

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21770
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-112
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-235

desktop.ini for D:\Docs aka D:\Ciaran

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=Ciaran
IconResource=C:\Windows\System32\SHELL32.dll,4
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-235

3 Answers

Windows doesn't support hot-swapping user data directories in this way.

To do so:

• Right-click on directory (D:\Docs) > Properties > Location Tab > New path (D:\Ciaran) > OK
  • If D:\Docs properties does not have a Location tab, then you'll need to perform the above procedure on the %UserProfile%\Documents directory.

Things can get confusing because the user folders that appear under This PC can have display names different than their filesystem names. The most relible way to determine true filesytem names is PowerShell or a Command Prompt.

The display name is supplied by the contents of the desktop.ini file. Normally, it references language-specific folder names:

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21770
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-112
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-235

But remaming can yield:

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=Renamed Folder
...

desktop.ini files normally have both Hidden & Sytem attributes set, so Explorer view settings must be set to both Show Hidden Files... and not Hide Protected OS Files.

If you need more help untangling, post a screenshot of D:\ from both PowerShell & Explorer.

The solution all be it a slight workaround was to create a new folder called Ciaran and copy the files across.