Hi. One thing I find a bit annoying about Windows XP is the
way XP must assume There is more than one person using
the computer. With these Documents and Settings folder, Default User,
All Users, Me, users who us the computer on a Thursday after the Cleveland
Browns
lose to Pittsburgh on a Sunday in November.... Get my point?
Seeing I'm the only person that who will ever use this computer in my
home does Vista take this into account or must I put up with this in the
next Windows release??

Thanks,
James

JamesJ wrote:

Hi. One thing I find a bit annoying about Windows XP is the
way XP must assume There is more than one person using
the computer. With these Documents and Settings folder, Default User,
All Users, Me, users who us the computer on a Thursday after the
Cleveland Browns
lose to Pittsburgh on a Sunday in November.... Get my point?
Seeing I'm the only person that who will ever use this computer in my
home does Vista take this into account or must I put up with this in
the next Windows release??

You are misunderstanding the way a real multi-user operating system
works. NT, Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Unix, Linux, OS X are all real
multi-user operating systems. Windows 9x/ME were not.

Even though you are the only user on your machine, there are other
system user accounts that are necessary to the operating system. This
is just the way grown-up operating systems work. If this troubles you,
there really is no reason for you to be messing about under Documents
and Settings anyway so just don't look at it.

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

If I'm limited in hard disk space it would make a difference.

James

"Malke" wrote in message
...
JamesJ wrote:

Hi. One thing I find a bit annoying about Windows XP is the
way XP must assume There is more than one person using
the computer. With these Documents and Settings folder, Default User,
All Users, Me, users who us the computer on a Thursday after the
Cleveland Browns
lose to Pittsburgh on a Sunday in November.... Get my point?
Seeing I'm the only person that who will ever use this computer in my
home does Vista take this into account or must I put up with this in
the next Windows release??

You are misunderstanding the way a real multi-user operating system
works. NT, Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Unix, Linux, OS X are all real
multi-user operating systems. Windows 9x/ME were not.

Even though you are the only user on your machine, there are other
system user accounts that are necessary to the operating system. This
is just the way grown-up operating systems work. If this troubles you,
there really is no reason for you to be messing about under Documents
and Settings anyway so just don't look at it.

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

JamesJ wrote:
If I'm limited in hard disk space it would make a difference.

No it wouldn't. The space taken up by "rubbish" in those areas is trivial.

Any 'real' use of the space in those areas would, if you only had a single
user system like Win 98, would still be there under your account. So the
space is more or less the same no matter what.

When I had Win 98 I don't recall having several folders for
several users such as xp has under Documents and Settings.
I never remember having to figure out where the heck the start
menu items where located for me or others. In Win Me I used
to have a shortcut on my desktop to my Start Menu if I needed to add
or remove items. Can't do that now.

"Robert Moir" wrote in message
...
JamesJ wrote:
If I'm limited in hard disk space it would make a difference.

No it wouldn't. The space taken up by "rubbish" in those areas is trivial.

Any 'real' use of the space in those areas would, if you only had a single
user system like Win 98, would still be there under your account. So the
space is more or less the same no matter what.

JamesJ wrote:
When I had Win 98 I don't recall having several folders for
several users such as xp has under Documents and Settings.

True that. You didn't.

XP and Vista are more sophisticated because your needs are more
sophisticated, even if you don't realise that. If they just had one account
context to run everything under, and you logged in with that account too,
your home folders would be in a right mess and whatever you think of Windows
security at the moment, it would be far worse were there only one account
for everything.

I never remember having to figure out where the heck the start
menu items where located for me or others.

To be fair, part of that may be down to badly written installers that don't
put their shortcuts in the right place.

In Win Me I used
to have a shortcut on my desktop to my Start Menu if I needed to add
or remove items. Can't do that now.

Don't see why not.

(written from testing on my XP machine, Vista should be similar but will
require UAC prompts here and there, I can't be asked to boot that load of
tripe and make a note of where exactly)

Right-click your start menu, choose "Explore All Users". Right-click on
programs folder, and then create a shortcut. Drag it to your desktop and
rename it something like "All Users Programs". That's half the job done.
Right-click on your start menu once more, choose "Explore". Right-click on
programs folder, and then create a shortcut. Drag it to your desktop and
rename it something like "My Programs". That's it, you're done, though if
you use the quick-launch bar and want to get really fancy you can drag the
shortcuts into that like I do.

Not as tidy as having just one start menu and just one shortcut for it, I
absolutely agree with that, but a long way from "Can't do that now".

"Robert Moir" wrote in message
...
JamesJ wrote:
When I had Win 98 I don't recall having several folders for
several users such as xp has under Documents and Settings.

True that. You didn't.

XP and Vista are more sophisticated because your needs are more
sophisticated, even if you don't realise that. If they just had one
account context to run everything under, and you logged in with that
account too, your home folders would be in a right mess and whatever you
think of Windows security at the moment, it would be far worse were there
only one account for everything.

I never remember having to figure out where the heck the start
menu items where located for me or others.

To be fair, part of that may be down to badly written installers that
don't put their shortcuts in the right place.

In Win Me I used
to have a shortcut on my desktop to my Start Menu if I needed to add
or remove items. Can't do that now.

Don't see why not.

(written from testing on my XP machine, Vista should be similar but will
require UAC prompts here and there, I can't be asked to boot that load of
tripe and make a note of where exactly)

Right-click your start menu, choose "Explore All Users". Right-click on
programs folder, and then create a shortcut. Drag it to your desktop and
rename it something like "All Users Programs". That's half the job done.
Right-click on your start menu once more, choose "Explore". Right-click on
programs folder, and then create a shortcut. Drag it to your desktop and
rename it something like "My Programs". That's it, you're done, though if
you use the quick-launch bar and want to get really fancy you can drag the
shortcuts into that like I do.

Not as tidy as having just one start menu and just one shortcut for it, I
absolutely agree with that, but a long way from "Can't do that now".

My home folders didn't seem to be in a mess with 98 or Me. They
seemed very organized and strait forward to me.
One thing that has helped tremendously is the ability for Tweak ui
to "move" special folders. I "moved" My Documents to a folder
off the root directory and have all data there including all the My folders
and my ie Favorites.

I agree it's the installations.
But, I don't keep the Start Menu Items of installed programs in
the Programs folder. I move them to a more meaningful custom
start menu folder such as Hardware Utilities or Multi Media programs.
This keeps my Programs folder clean. Again, If I kept all program
shortcuts and folders in the Programs folder it would take a long time
find anything. So, my Programs is empty except for Startup.

James

"Robert Moir" wrote in message
...
JamesJ wrote:
When I had Win 98 I don't recall having several folders for
several users such as xp has under Documents and Settings.

True that. You didn't.

XP and Vista are more sophisticated because your needs are more
sophisticated, even if you don't realise that. If they just had one
account context to run everything under, and you logged in with that
account too, your home folders would be in a right mess and whatever you
think of Windows security at the moment, it would be far worse were there
only one account for everything.

I never remember having to figure out where the heck the start
menu items where located for me or others.

To be fair, part of that may be down to badly written installers that
don't put their shortcuts in the right place.

In Win Me I used
to have a shortcut on my desktop to my Start Menu if I needed to add
or remove items. Can't do that now.

Don't see why not.

(written from testing on my XP machine, Vista should be similar but will
require UAC prompts here and there, I can't be asked to boot that load of
tripe and make a note of where exactly)

Right-click your start menu, choose "Explore All Users". Right-click on
programs folder, and then create a shortcut. Drag it to your desktop and
rename it something like "All Users Programs". That's half the job done.
Right-click on your start menu once more, choose "Explore". Right-click on
programs folder, and then create a shortcut. Drag it to your desktop and
rename it something like "My Programs". That's it, you're done, though if
you use the quick-launch bar and want to get really fancy you can drag the
shortcuts into that like I do.

Not as tidy as having just one start menu and just one shortcut for it, I
absolutely agree with that, but a long way from "Can't do that now".