Changing Default Location of MY PICTURES folder in Windows 7
Hi Guys I have noticed that in Windows 7 the 'MY Pictures' folder is no longer a sub-section of the 'My Documents' Folder. I have moved my 'My documents' and 'Desktop' folders within my user profile to a NEW location (another partition) but would like to know how this is now done for the 'My Pictures' Folder also ? Normally it would move with the 'My Documents' folder but, as I have said above, the 'My Pictures' now seems to be a separate entity to 'My Documents' as a whole. Thansk
July 6th, 2009 8:25pm

To move My Pictures to a different location, right-click it > Properties > Location Tab > Move, select a Destination and follow the prompts. The location can be restored by choosing Restore Default.
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July 6th, 2009 8:50pm

BurrWalnut has the answer, but just an observation: I've never known the Pictures to be a sub-folder of Documents. To my knowledge, it's always been right inside your user profile folder, something like C:\Users\JohnDoe\Pictures (Vista/7) or C:\Documents and Settings\JohnDoe\My Pictures (XP or earlier).I haven't tested this on 7, but in earlier versions of Windows, you could also just drag the folder to a new location and Windows (knowing that you just moved a special shell folder) would automatically make the adjustment to the registry (as an alternative to BurrWalnut's instructions). However, I'd go with what he said just to be safe.
July 6th, 2009 9:45pm

Except there IS no 'Location tab' under properties for My Pictures in Windows 7.
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August 25th, 2010 9:49am

The answer you are looking for can be found at: http://www.online-tech-tips.com/windows-vista/move-my-pictures-to-different-location/ and is where I acquired the information below. One way Windows helps you organize your files is to direct different kinds of content to different locations. There’s a Music folder, a Videos folder, a Saved Games folder, and a Pictures folder. Put all your digital pictures in your Pictures folder, for example, and that’s where most photo applications will prompt you to open and save your files. And as explained in the previous section, Windows Explorer will be more likely to display your pictures as thumbnails if they’re in the Pictures folder (or a subfolder thereof). But what if you don’t want to put your pictures there? Previously, I wrote about how you can change the location of the My Documents folder , but what if you only want to move the My Pictures folder? Since years of digital photos can take up gobs of hard disk space, many people have started storing their pictures (as well as their music) on second hard disks, and it can be a pain to have to manually switch to the new location each time you need to open or save a file. The solution is to tell Windows where your Pictures folder ought to be, a task that requires a quick Registry modification (make sure to backup the registry first): 1. Open the Registry Editor by running “regedit” 2. Expand the branches to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders then choose My Pictures : 3. To edit the value, double click the “My Pictures” registry entry and enter a new path of the My Pictures directory: For example, to change to “D:\Pictures”, enter that path to the value data field then click OK: The change should take effect immediately, but you may have to restart any open applications before they’ll recognize the new location. To test the change, open Microsoft Paint (mspaint.exe), and select File > Open. The default folder should be the path you entered above.
October 13th, 2010 7:37pm

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