Sharing IE Favorites

[RonaldRCarlson]

My wife and I have separate User Accounts on our Win 7 Laptop and use Microsoft Office 2010. I maintain a large Favorites structure of URL files. Certainly my wife could build her own set of Favorites, but I would like to let her share mine. Is there a way for both her and my User accounts and our Internet Explorer 9's, access the same Favorites, without havint to copy them to her default Favorites Folder? Thanks for your suggestions. Ron Carlson

[Medico]

Ronald, Welcome to the Lounge.

You should be able to open Windows Explorer (Win+E) The Favorites are in C:, Users, "User Name", You can highlight and copy your favorites, then open her Favorites folder and paste them in there.

[RonaldRCarlson]

Ted, Right, I can jsut copy the whole Favorites tree from my to her User/Favorites folder. I was hoping though if there was a way that we could share the one Favorites folder tree of URL's. Like maybe putting "my" Favorites in the Public Favorites, and then if there was some way to get IE to look to this other place than to her User/Favorites folder. Any idea on that??? Thanks, Ron Carlson

[Medico]

Don't know about that one. I just thought you wanted to copy your favorites to her.

In my setup I have a data partition. I have moved all data folders to that partition, including my favorites. I suppose you could do the same, or something similar with her favorites by pointing toward your favorites folder. I would make sure your first, backup your favorites tree in case something goes wrong, then make sure her favorites is empty then point to your favorites folder. Or perhaps go ahead and create a separate data partition and move everything that can be moved to there. I have not tried this but it may work (We both have out own PC's with our own data folders)

Note: This does work because I just tried it. I pointed my Favorites link in my Win 8 RP OS to the Favorites folder in my Win 7 OS (located on my data partition in my case.) My Win 8 RP and Win 7 Favorites both point to the same folder. Now if I make changes from either OS the changes are made to both OS's. Cool!

[RonaldRCarlson]

Ted,
You know much more about computer settings than I do.
1. Do you actually have to create a separate Partitian, or could I just either,
A. Point Donna's Favorites to look in mine, under my User Name, or
B. Move all of my Favorites to the Public/Favorites folder and refer
hers and mine to that one?
2. How and where do you go to make the change in IE so that it will
look to this new Favorites Tree Location?

If you care to, you may e-mail me direct, but going back through this
gives others a chance to learn from you.

Ron Carlson
Ron.Carlson@DonnaMCarlson.com

[Medico]

When you use the approved method as shown in my link, the pointer to the folder is automatically changed to the new location. You might be able to simply point her favorites to yours. I like the separate partition for all my data because I can back up the data separately from the OS. If the OS get's corrupted, I can restore from an Image I created without touching the data at all.

I recreate Images of my HD regularly. This way my Image is Up To Date. This way when I screw something up in my OS, I just restore the OS partition without affecting the data at all. Say the Image is 2 months old, how much has the data changed in that 2 months?

By the way Ron, edit your previous post and remove your email address. We do get spammers periodically that would love to have another email.

If I need your email, you can PM me.

[RonaldRCarlson]

Ted,
Although I do not fully understand the steps in the great Link you sent, I can appreciate your reasoning to Partition and separate your Operating System storage from your Data. Here is my/out situation. We do each have two very good recent PC. What I am trying to do this for is on our Sony VPCZ122GX Laptop with 128GB Solid State "Hard Drive". Looking in Computer, there is 25.5 GB free of 108 GB. My Favorites tree is extensive, likely way more than I need and so am reluctant to copy the whole thing to my wifes USERS/Favorites and have it further reduce the 25% remaining Free Space and similarly, I hesitate to try Partitioning this particular computer given the stats. If I get it right, following the procedure in your Link, I would be changing the referenced location of a lot of files/folders. I am hoping that somehow I can just change the reference for the Favorites one. In the Link article, I see that in My Documents Properties, it shows changing the Target Location, but I do not see an indication of which one or "all" would be affected. If there is a place to change the Target for just the Favorites, I would love it. Thanks again, Ron Carlson

[Medico]

What I would do is to backup her favorites, then empty her favorites. I would then do the following:
1) Right Click her Favorites and select Properties.

2) On the location tab select Move.

3) In the next window find your Favorites folder and choose Select Folder.

4) Select Apply

5) Once you see things are working, delete the Favorites backup.

That's it. Now her Favorites should point to your Favorites Tree.

I do understand your reluctance to partition or add more. (Although most favorites take up only about 1Kb of space) This procedure would actually reduce the amount of used space by a small amount.

You really should look into Imaging to backup your entire HD. I would create a new Image before I started the above, just in case. After you find it's working, simply create another Image and keep both. I store my Images on an Ext USB HD. These drives are inexpensive and can store lots of Images.

[RonaldRCarlson]

Ted, Perfect! Exactly what I was wishing for. Seems so simple, why hadn't I figured it out before??? We know that with various programs, in Properties, you can specify where it should "look" and it is the same here with Favorites. Forget the simple basic thing. But you are on top of it and I thank you for the time spent helping me. Now I have to decide if I really want her to have full access to my Favorites, where she could accidently delete portions I want. I do see that under the Properties-Sharing, I can set Permissions.

I see your info indictes Rochester NY. As of last December, we retired from the Pacific NW, Camas WA, to Ecuador. Loving being here, beautiful scenic country and a lower cost of living.

[Medico]

We hope to retire within a couple of years and head south of here, perhaps Tn or NC. Once I can get an income stream set up it's Adios NY. Costs way too much to live here. Anyway wishing you the best. Just tell her to watch out for the favorites so she does not delete things. If she is anything like my wife she will be adding, not deleting. Anyway enjoy and let us know how it works out.

[dogberry]

Create a Word document and use hyperlinks to a list of names of favorites, categorizing them as you like.

The fun part is that you can then provide annotations regarding the merits or otherwise of the sites, using Word in all its glory (fonts, weights, punctuation, colors, etc.) to format the text, and you can have a running battle or otherwise over the sites themselves, establishing a personal hierarchy, and bounce the document(s) back and forth between yourselves. In this way you keep it alive, having a virtual conversation which may readily spill over into live conversation at any time. (Did you read the article in...?)

An example of the general idea appears in the newsletter as Wacky Web Week: it's a link complete with editorial comment.

I confess I use search engines far too often and quality sites far too seldom, having all but forgotten I even have (or had) favorites.

Incidentally, there is a tiny free program called AM-Deadlink that will check all of your bookmarks for you to see if they are still valid.