Curse

Kumu Honua · Apr 28, 2010, 02:59 AM // 02:59

Now I have a problem that XP never had.

I made shortcuts to many files, and over time have moved many of the folders to my personal preference.

Now all my shortcuts are pointing to invalid locations.

In Windows XP, the computer would search for the new location and everything was fine. However it appears that Windows 7 only wants to delete all my shortcuts.

Is there any program/tool that will repair shortcuts?

Quaker · Apr 28, 2010, 02:23 PM // 14:23

Yes, it's called "Your Brain + Your Keyboard".

Simply edit the Target line of the shortcuts to point to the correct location.

Or, create new shortcuts from the new locations.

Kumu Honua · Apr 29, 2010, 01:21 AM // 01:21

I was afraid of that. It was a ton of shortcuts.

Oh well, buckle down time. Wish they didn't change that. XP had that part right.

MelechRic · Apr 29, 2010, 03:23 AM // 03:23

You might want to google "junction points".

If you were consistent in how you moved things you might be able to do something simple to get everything the way you like.

In all honesty I'd just try keeping things where installers place them. In the long run it makes your life easier when you eventually wish to remove them.

Silmar Alech · Apr 29, 2010, 02:05 PM // 14:05

This is the time to think of a new way to organize your stuff. Throw away your shortcuts and organize your directories with the use of the new Windows 7 libraries. Create new libraries and collect directories in them. Don't move default windows directories - collect them in custom-made libraries instead.

There are also these "recently used" picklists in the task bar and the pinned items in the start menu. Often, it is not neccessary to directly create shortcuts - they are already there in the lists of "recently used" stuff.

Over the last years, I distributed my data under Windows XP to many different locations. Small but important stuff to a network server, big stuff (videos and virtual machines) to the local drive. Some things were partly local and partly remote. It was a mess. I consolidated all this and made a few additional libraries where I collected all important directories in a well-organized way.

A big help is the change that music, video and pictures are not hard-coded subdirectories of the "my documents" folder any more. Instead, I am able to freely move these default directories around (click properties of any of these directories and you see a additional tab called "path", which was present on XP only for the my documents folder). There is a built-in way to move these around, so you could do it. But don't move other windows-created directories around, for example program (*.exe) installation directories. Try to install applications to the default paths.

Kumu Honua · Apr 29, 2010, 09:12 PM // 21:12

I appreciate the answers.

My problem was that I didn't think they would remove a good idea from XP to replace it with draconian "Sorry, can't do that dave" for Windows 7.

So I proceeded as I have before. Install, use defaults, move where I want after.

I learned my lesson and reinstalled everything taking the time to make sure everything was installed into the locations that I want it installed.

On a plus note: I got Dungeon keeper I and II as well as M.A.X. (I was quite surprised to get M.A.X. to work as I had trouble even in XP with that one.)