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Part II:
Essential Features in Windows Vista
much easier to use and reference than C:\Documents and Settings\William\My Documents.
That said, however, Windows XP and Windows Vista both track the location of the currently
logged on user’s profile folder by using the %UserProfile% environment variable.
From the experts
Using the command line
The Windows Vista changes to where documents, pictures, and user profiles are located
also make it easier to navigate the file system from the command line. For example,
when you open a command prompt in Windows XP, your current directory is your user
profile directory %UserProfile%, which is C:\Documents and Settings\Mitch Tulloch
on my computer. If I want to change my current directory to where my pictures are
located, I have to type the following:
cd "My Documents\My Pictures"
Note the need to enclose the path in quotes—these are needed because of the spaces
present. In Vista however, I need to type only this:
cd Pictures
Less typing means more productivity. In fact, I might need to type only
cd p
and press
TAB a few times until
cd Pictures
appears, and then press Enter. You can do the same
for the Windows XP example, but you’d have to do it in two steps. That is, type
cd
m
(TAB, TAB, TAB… and press Enter) followed by
cd m
(TAB... and press Enter). The
bottom line, though, is that the fewer times you need to enclose paths in quotes, the
easier it becomes to navigate from the command line. Now if only they had changed
the Program Files directory into just Programs!
Mitch Tulloch
Author and MVP—For more information, see http://www.mtit.com.
Within the newly reorganized structure of personal folders, a user’s document and data fold-
ers are stored as top-level folders within a personal folder. Thus rather than the Documents
folder containing a number of subfolders for pictures, music, and so on, the Documents folder
is meant to contain only documents. Reorganizing the structure of personal folders should
make it easier to manage and back up a user’s personal data.
Other important changes are reflected in the right pane as well. To understand these changes,
let’s review the option buttons provided in the right pane. From top to bottom, the option
buttons are as follows:
■
Current user
The name of the currently logged on user. Clicking this option opens the
user’s personal folder in Windows Explorer.
■
Documents
Opens the %UserProfile%\Documents folder in Windows Explorer.
■
Pictures
Opens the %UserProfile%\Pictures folder in Windows Explorer.
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