Windows - My Documents

[Touti]

Stupid idea but has anyone tried to use the same network folder as the "My Documents" folder for 2 machines ?

I have 1 XP and 1 Vista machine.  Can I point both "My Documents" folders to "F:\My Documents" ?

[RossRoy]

Isn't Vista doing some sort of folder virtualization, which would wreak havoc with the way XP handles the My Documents folder?

Other than that, I don't see why it would be all that bad. It's not like it's a folder that has critical program data that could differ on the two machines... Might be funny though if two people are playing the same game on the two computers at the same time!

[Touti]

I'm the only one using the machines.  I just want to dump everything in 1 place (my external drive) and still have all the softwares that default to folders inside "My Documents" to work.

[DJ Doena]

is this external drive a network drive and connected to both machines at the same time?

[Najemikon]

If Karsten is right, you could map a local drive to the network share, then redirect My Documents on both PCs to that new drive.

If it's a share on another PC, I'm not sure how the client PC would react if the My Documents location had gone. Still map the local drive, but enable offline files and that might do the trick.

[Touti]

I don' have it yet but it's gonna be the western digital I gave a link for above.  It's gonna be connected to a gigabit switch so both pc's will have access to it at all time.

[Achim]

Isn't Vista doing some sort of folder virtualization, which would wreak havoc with the way XP handles the My Documents folder?

Not sure how they do it (vitually or whatever), but you can redirect My Documents in Vista. So I wouldn't see why you cannot point it to F:... (which I assume is on the other computer).

I did that recently for a friend (rather computer illiterate), on the Chinese system nonetheless. It is actually very tedious to do in Vista, not quite as simple as ni XP. However, you can actually redirect any of the personal folders, including "Favorites", etc., which is kinda cool. The latter is also possible in XP, of course, but more difficult (TweakUI is a great help though).

[Touti]

It's not really the redirection that I'm worried about, I know this can be done (reasonably) easily.  I'm more worried about having 2 PC's with different OS' using the same folder as their "My documents" folder.  I don't want to put a domain together so I wonder what's gonna happen with ownership of the files.

[DJ Doena]

Since you are the only one using the computer(s), simply grant "everyone" "full access".

[Achim]

...or create a special user group on the computer where the data is stored and add the username form the other computer to it. Just like you would in any network environment. Using "Everyone" somehow feels wrong.

[RossRoy]

...or create a special user group on the computer where the data is stored and add the username form the other computer to it. Just like you would in any network environment. Using "Everyone" somehow feels wrong.

From what I understand, the shared my documents folder will not be on a specific computer, but on a network storage device. A stand alone hard drive basically.