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C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.XXXXXXX

hello experts,

i have clean-installed Win2000Pro many times and i've never seen this before...
i just got a Toshiba Portege 2000 and did a clean install of Win2000Pro as usual; i had to go to toshiba site to get drivers etc but nothing unusual.

In the C:\Documents and Settings\ folder there are expected folders:
1. Administrator
2. All Users
3. Default User

What is UNUSUAL (to me at least) is that there are additional folders:
1. Adminstrator.PORTEGE
2. All Users.WINNT
3. Default User.WINNT

I am logged on as "Administrator". There are no users except for "Guest".

"My Documents" links to "Adminstrator.PORTEGE\My Documents". This is causing problems for me because there are many scripts that I share among other computers which I point to the "Administrator" folder. So when I move it to the Portege and use those scripts, it doesn't work because the expected files are not in the "Adminstrator" folder, but in the "Administrator.PORTEGE" folder.

Preferably, I would like to eliminate those "unusual" unexpected folders and make sure that My Documents shortcut points to "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents".

Any ideas?
Thanks
phil

Dear spoowiz,

See this

Windows 2000 setup added a '.Winnt' extension to the 'All Users' and 'Default User' profiles?
http://www.jsiinc.com/SUBK/tip5400/rh5431.htm

Thanks,
Sunray

while isntalling windows (i guess u named your computer protege), you must have specified Administrator as the default user and then when it asked for the admin user name pw , u said administrator and pw...

so when u login as administrator.. it is saying, u r the admin of the computer.. but not the user administrator i guess..

i have seen this before but i guess i havent explained it to u properly.. i will try to guide from some resource later on..

ASKER

sunray:
i read your comment. it thinks i did a 2nd installation of win2000? you know what, there was a problem after the first install so i re-installed but did not format the disk again. that may be the cause.
now i need a fix. how can my "Administrator" user access
"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents" instead of
"C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.Portege\My Documents".

how do i "unconfuse" it?

This is a 3 step process:

Rename the 'Administrator' folder to Administrator.keep

Create a new User from the Users Control Panel Item and add them to the administrators group.

Reboot the computer and login as the new user.

Now rename the Adminstrator.PORTEGE to Adminstrator.PORTEGE.trash

Then: Start > Shut Down > Logoff > OK and log back on as Administrator this should create a new profile in a new 'administrator' folder.

At this point you can start with this fresh profile and delete the other unneeded folders after salvaging any files and continue on your way. Or to restore the administrator profile to what it was when the folder was 'administrator' before do the following:

Reboot again.

Log back in as your created secondary admin user.

Delete the new administrator folder.

rename the administrator.keep folder back to administrator.

Log off and back on as administrator, you should now be back to the old profile and proper administrator folder.

You can always check what folder your logged on user is pulling from by right clicking the start button and clicking open. Then set the full path to be visible in the address bar by checking the option in Tools > Folder Options.

This is a very good method for restoring a users profile and settings after doing a windows repair from CD.

Maybe it's smarter to change your scripts to %userprofile%\My Documents and run the script only as an administrator.

Peter

spoowiz, i bet you installed a toshiba OEM version of windows 2000. with retail version, you wont get this. peter_fleur's comment is a right way if you dont change system, it also makes your batch file flexible and compatible. and what i would like to remind is, dont expect changing a profile name, folder name would change all, a lot of pathes are stored in the registry, can NOT to be replaced completely.

hope it helps,
bbao

ASKER

PaulHieb,
How sure are you of this fix? bbao seems to think i won't work completely.

peter/bbao,
scripts are not changeable per your suggestion. it's not as robust as say vb scripts.

thanks

hmm, really dont understand why batch file is not changeable. i think it is easy to edit a batch file rather than to change all path references all around your system. you mean your batch file is read-only? ;-))

ASKER

scripts are not batch file. scripts are for 3rd party software and is not robust. does not have variables.

o, i see. what kind of script they are? vbscript? windows script? could you paste a short part of your scripts to here? you know, i still think changing script is much easier then others.

I've used to above described method many many times and would bet money on it.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

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only points can be used to bet at EE... ;-))

ASKER

PaulHieb,
you sound sure. i am going to try your suggestion.

spoowiz, why dont have a try on PaulHieb's bet-comments?! i have a method you can use to confirm if PaulHieb wins the bet: just search "Adminstrator.PORTEGE" through the registry, if nothing found, then PaulHieb should get the bonus, and hopefully share with us... ;-))

That search will yield all kinds or recently used files, amongst other things. Which the majority of will be in the HKey_Current User sub tree, which gets loaded into the Registry hive during profile load from the folder that the SAM database points to.

PaulHieb, you are right. any matched MRU items should ignored.

additionally, you may consider use Delprof.exe to delete temp or unused profiles on your windows 2000.

ASKER

SAM, MRU... way beyond me.
sorry, i haven't had a chance to do. will try as soon as i can (after i do a full backup :)

dont worry:
SAM = Security Accounts Manager
MRU = Most Recently Used

ASKER

Thank you all for your input.
Thank you PaulHieb for your solution. I didn't need to keep anything so I took to shortcut. I saved off "my documents" and copied it back later.
Worked like a charm.

The only "odd" thing that happened was that after I tried to start a couple of programs (shortcuts) from the start menu, pc started to ask for Microsoft Office CD. I put it in, and everything is fine.

it is caused by what i said early, "a lot of pathes are stored in the registry, can NOT to be replaced completely."

Glad to Help!

The office installation that you had to do was from Office storing user specific configurations in the application data folder of each user profile. After deleting the old and creating a new profile it had to 'reinstall' some of the basic document templates, etc.