I'm a bit late I know (only 10 years or so), but I never use windows explorer and especially not the home directory with its ridiculous location... but why the heck is it not possible to access the home directory from windows explorer? There are bullshit categories like videos and music, but no direct link to the home directory. The small arrow at the "root" of the adress bar seems to be the only way to access users home. WTF?

Its in Desktop.

But I agree, that's bullshit.

I added it to start menu and I access it easly this way.

Historically it wasn't that important in Windows. My Documents were kinda like the home directory, many programs still leave their configs in there. It's a relatively recent invention (since Vista - 2006 IIRC) and it doesn't serve the same purpose as in *nixes.

Historical expectation that users have no reason to access their own user directory is the main reason, I believe. That lets programs muck about without the user seeing the clutter. Good idea? Not necessarily, but change is slow with Microsoft.

@powerfulparadox @gronostaj IIRC XP and older versions had a direct link on the main explorer page. And I still don't get it. How do I add own directories to my home if I cannot access it easily? Do people only have music, videos and "documents" today?

@ddephor You can still get there the hard way (browse from C: directly is how I usually do it). You can make whatever shortcuts you want after that.

As for the folders, I have a separate drive that I share with my Linux install that I use for that stuff, so I'm probably not a great model for how most people do things.

Ok, I played a bit, and it gets worse.

You can add a new "libraries", whatever that means...

Then link a directory to a library, with the home directory as the default path, so you may create a subdirectory there. In that "library" you can add directories, files or whatever. And for whatever reason it shows you the root of the drive of the directory after the library name, like "c:\user\dd\test\" displays "test (C:)", "d:\whatever\dummy\directory\to\my\secret\data\" displays "dummy (D:)"

Where does the DEA dump all the confiscated drugs? Redmond?

@powerfulparadox Yeah, sure, I know how to get to the home directory. On windows I usually use TotalCommander, which shows me the truth and there I have to navigate to the real directory, which is ok for me. I just don't get why MS implements so much bullshit within the explorer, which just hides basic information.

Another bullshit idea from MS is to show some directories with names according to the current locale, which also makes it really hard to know where you are. In german Windows, "C:\user\xy" is displayed as "C:\Benutzer\xy" in Windows Explorer, which is a lie, there is no directory "C:\Benutzer\". It is a good idea to unify the real directory names over different locales, as it was a bad idea in earlier versions to create directories based on the locale, but at least the directories were displayed as they were named back then. But since W7 or probably Vista the displayed names in Windows Explorer are plain wrong.

Now I again know why I don't use Windows Explorer.

@ddephor The libraries feature was never well explained and probably poorly designed as well, but the concept was well-intentioned (I think). The basic idea was that if you had files of the same type in different places you could put them in the same library and access them in one place. Of course this doesn't make adding files easier (Where do they go by default? What happens if you want them somewhere else?) and, Microsoft being Microsoft, the main folders (Documents, Pictures, etc.) had corresponding libraries which were the default shortcut links for a while, making things even more confusing.

Think of a library like a poorly-done symantic filesystem overlay that only merges directories and doesn't make clear what it's doing. Yeah. Well done, Microsoft.

@powerfulparadox *scratchmyhead* As far as I see it, a library is linked to one directory. It can have subdirectories and files, as it is just a directory. But it is not possible to add several directories from different locations to one library to access similar data from the same starting point.

@ddephor You should be able to. It's been a while since I even bothered, and they might have changed things a bit in Windows 7, but here's the docs page:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/...

Some links (for win 10, not Vista, but the interface should be similar) for managing folders within libraries:

https://tenforums.com/tutorials/...

https://thewindowsclub.com/add-remo...

The last link is probably the best at explaining things. If this doesn't clear some things up, you probably haven't lost much. I just discovered that Windows 10 hides libraries by default now, even though they still exist.

You're trying to apply Unix logic to something that is not Unix, of course it doesn't make sense !

Look, I'm not a fan of Windows (far from it). But you gotta realize that Windows explorer is a very powerful tool that's also easy for newcomers and non tech people to use.

@ddephor Ahh, right, 2K and XP had user directories, maybe entire NT line did (I never used older ones). But before Vista My Music, My Videos etc. were under My Documents, so My Documents was actually the place to store all your files. Vista moved content-specific directories directly to the user directory.

@MagicSowap It has nothing to do with Unix logic, that is a basic funtion of multi-user systems. If more than one user can access the system, the user data should be separated, there has to be a well-defined location for it and the user should access it easily.