Moving 'My Music' to another location (XP/SP2)

[rasputin]

Greetings.

This is my first post on this forum. <img src=/S/baby.gif border=0 alt=baby width=15 height=15>

Some months ago, I think I saw a procedure for moving my "My Music" folder out from under "My Documents" to another location entirely. As it happens, my kids and I have larded up my hard drive with gigabytes galore of music. I bought a 320-GB USB drive (My Book) and have partitioned it for backup and Ubuntu, with room for lots of media files left over.

I want to move all users' "My Music", "My Videos", and "My Pictures" folders to this new drive. Furthermore, I want the default location of these folders to be on the new hard drive, freeing up a great space on my default hard drive. (Not "My Documents").

What I think I could do is:
1. Create these folders for each user on the new drive
2. Copy all media files to their twin locations on the new drive
3. Delete the original folders from their locations under each user's "My Documents"
4. Replace the deleted folders with shortcuts to the new locations

Considering that my PC has 9 user accounts, this is a tedious and error-prone gluteal pain! And I doubt Windows would let me delete these default folders from under "My Documents".

I thought I had seen a procedure for changing the default location of "My Music" folder in PC World some months back but I can't find it now.

BTW, although the drive is USB-2, my dinosaur PC (from 1990) only has USB-1. I will first test how media files play from the drive before I commit myself. For now, I just want to know how it can be done.

Ideas, anyone?

Thanks Mucho!

[Leif]

Welcome to the Lounge!

There are instructions here at My Digital Life which may help. I would see what others say, but I would be wary of moving what is probably considered to be a 'system file' to a location that may not exist (if the USB drive is removed).

[DocWatson]

You could change the location of your entire My Documents folder to the new dive. There are instructions here. But as Leif pointed out, it might be problematic because it is a System file and might not do well being on a removable USB drive. Another problem will likely be the transfer speeds of a USB1 connection for music. You might have to invest in a USB2 card and install it in your machine to get the full functionality of that new drive.