Jelle Druyts

And another thing that's driving me nuts... I use the "My Documents" folder in Windows as kind of a "transfer" folder where I dump files temporarily before I install stuff, move it to a permanent location or delete it altogether. That means I feel great when it's empty because then my queue is empty and I don't have anymore work Same goes for my Inbox for example, if I get that empty (rarely ever but anyway) that means my mind can relax. [Well, apart from a little Outlook annoyance that doesn't show the new mail icon in the Taskbar Notification Area - look Raymond, I called it the right name! - when a new email arrives in an empty inbox since it then gets selected and marked as read, but that aside.] Shortly put: I'm a filer, not a piler.

But I'm straying from the subject here. If empty is good, then full must mean bad. So anything that shows up in the My Documents folder is bad, and that especially goes for the My Pictures folder (and the related My Music and My Videos folders). The first thing I'd normally do on a new Windows installation is delete these since I don't ever use them. But Microsoft has decided that they're good for me so to make sure I don't miss out on all the incredibly feature-rich goodness they bring, Windows just keeps recreating them.

I looked around on the internet again, but this one seems unstoppable. I found some post that suggested to modify the Shell Folders in the registry (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders) but if I point the My Pictures folder directly to the My Documents folder, it just keeps resetting it. Deleting the key, or redirecting it somewhere else (out of sight) doesn't help either. I guess it's just hard coded into Windows

That actually reminds me of a post by Raymond Chen again where he explains why there no programmatic access to the Start menu pin list. He's ranting off on programs that are spamming themselves into the Start menu because they're "so cool they want to be everywhere to make sure you don't miss out on the coolest most amazing program ever written in the history of mankind". Well this time Microsoft definately suffers from the same disease...

Well anyway, if you're having some trouble with Windows too, be sure to check out annoyances.org. Maybe you'll find someting interesting that can soothe your head.