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Office 2003 renames "My Documents" to username's Documents, why?



 
 
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  #1  
Old June 15th, 2004, 01:02 AM
Terry
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Default Office 2003 renames "My Documents" to username's Documents, why?

I support an Active Directory with a mixture of W2K and XP Pro workstations.
We use Roaming profiles and Group Policies to minimize the amount of roaming
profile that is copied to the network. Group Policy provides for an 'exclude
directories in roaming profile', so I added to the default, "My Documents"
and My Documents\My Pictures". This has worked fine with W2K and Office
2000. Now I find that with my XP Pro and Office 2003 PC's, the directory
gets renamed as username's Documents, both in the local copy and the network
copy of the roaming profile (if network logon ID is abc, then the directory
is called abc's Documents).

Effectively that breaks my ability to support and minimize the size of the
network copy of the roaming profile as I cannot prevent the "username's
Documents" folder duplicating on the network copy of the roaming profile.

I also spotted that W2K can work with this newly renamed document folder,
believes it is "My Documents" and will remove it (inline with Group Policy)
if a XP user logs on and off a W2K PC.

I don't want to use redirection, or offline folders, or change anything. I
just want Office 2003 to stop renaming the folder. I know it's Office 2003
doing this as a check proved it. Microsoft's knowledgebase doesn't seem to
have anything on this (bloody difficult to find most things, unless you are
bang on with a keyword!).

Terry Robb
New Zealand


  #2  
Old June 16th, 2004, 05:47 AM
Eric Lawrence [MSFT]
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Default Office 2003 renames "My Documents" to username's Documents, why?

Office does not rename the user's My documents folder. WindowsXP has logic
which will change the apparent title of the folder in Explorer view when
you're logged in via a different account.

So, if for instance, I log into my computer using my name (Eric) and I
browse to my friend's personal folder C:\documents and settings\irfaan\, it
appears that this folder contains a folder "Irfaan's documents".

However, looking at the same path in DOS shows that the folder name is
really "C:\documents and settings\irfaan\My Documents" even though Explorer
shows otherwise.

When you click on the "Irfaan's documents" folder in the Explorer view and
then look at the address line, you'll see the correct (C:\documents and
settings\irfaan\My Documents) path.

I'm 99% sure this is a convenience feature of Windows, affects the display
only, and will not affect any scripts or other commands. You should ask in
a Windows newsgroup for more info.

Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


"Terry" wrote in message
...
I support an Active Directory with a mixture of W2K and XP Pro

workstations.
We use Roaming profiles and Group Policies to minimize the amount of

roaming
profile that is copied to the network. Group Policy provides for an

'exclude
directories in roaming profile', so I added to the default, "My Documents"
and My Documents\My Pictures". This has worked fine with W2K and Office
2000. Now I find that with my XP Pro and Office 2003 PC's, the directory
gets renamed as username's Documents, both in the local copy and the

network
copy of the roaming profile (if network logon ID is abc, then the

directory
is called abc's Documents).

Effectively that breaks my ability to support and minimize the size of the
network copy of the roaming profile as I cannot prevent the "username's
Documents" folder duplicating on the network copy of the roaming profile.

I also spotted that W2K can work with this newly renamed document folder,
believes it is "My Documents" and will remove it (inline with Group

Policy)
if a XP user logs on and off a W2K PC.

I don't want to use redirection, or offline folders, or change anything. I
just want Office 2003 to stop renaming the folder. I know it's Office 2003
doing this as a check proved it. Microsoft's knowledgebase doesn't seem to
have anything on this (bloody difficult to find most things, unless you

are
bang on with a keyword!).

Terry Robb
New Zealand




  #3  
Old June 16th, 2004, 09:24 PM
Terry
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Office 2003 renames "My Documents" to username's Documents, why?

I can accept that that may be the case (I did check on the commandline and
what you say is true), however my AD Group Policy excludes "My Documents"
from the roaming profile, and it works with W2K and Office 2K, however the
XP Pro PC's (with Office 2003) do NOT respect this group policy (other GPO
are respected) and let the "My Documents" which appears visually as username
Documents to copy to the network copy of the roaming profile! The network
copy is called My Documents at commandline, again disconcerting as how can
we trust what we see now!
I can also say that according to my test it deesn't appear to be a Windows
feature, the folder only changed name when I started Word 2003 for the first
time.
Where is there info on this 'visual feature' that is supposedly causing this
problem as I'd like to turn it off!!!

Terry...


  #4  
Old June 17th, 2004, 05:40 AM
Eric Lawrence [MSFT]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Office 2003 renames "My Documents" to username's Documents, why?

I'm afraid I don't know why your exclusion isn't working.

The "show folder owner's name" feature is introduced by Windows. The hidden
"Desktop.ini" file in the user's "My Documents" folder contains an Owner=
key which sets the display name.

So, if you make the line:

Owner=Pickles

And you then look at the parent folder in Explorer, you'll see a folder
named "Pickles's documents". Sorta silly.

See
http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1
for more info on this feature.

--
Thanks,

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Assistance and Worldwide Services

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

"Terry" wrote in message
...
I can accept that that may be the case (I did check on the commandline and
what you say is true), however my AD Group Policy excludes "My Documents"
from the roaming profile, and it works with W2K and Office 2K, however the
XP Pro PC's (with Office 2003) do NOT respect this group policy (other GPO
are respected) and let the "My Documents" which appears visually as

username
Documents to copy to the network copy of the roaming profile! The network
copy is called My Documents at commandline, again disconcerting as how can
we trust what we see now!
I can also say that according to my test it deesn't appear to be a Windows
feature, the folder only changed name when I started Word 2003 for the

first
time.
Where is there info on this 'visual feature' that is supposedly causing

this
problem as I'd like to turn it off!!!

Terry...




  #5  
Old June 17th, 2004, 09:44 PM
Terry
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Office 2003 renames "My Documents" to username's Documents, why?

Thanks for that info, I was tearing my hair out (and I ain't got much left)
trying to find to MS info in knowledgebase. I am coming to the conclusion
that maybe we might have some corrupt profiles, although it seems unusual
that all of 1 dept have the same problem, they are the only ones thus far on
XP and Office 2003.

At least I can cross off one problem.

Cheers, Terry...


 




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