XYplorer Beta Club

I discovered that Favorite Folders don't work in certain circumstances.

On a machine where the user data (e.g. Documents folder, etc...) is located on a network drive instead of the local drive, if I have any Favorite Folders located in those special networked folders, they simply don't work (e.g. Documents\Test).

I can set them, but if I try to go to them (via the Favorites menu), absolutely nothing happens.

if I set a local folder as a Favorite, then that still works just fine.

Just to make sure, are you talking about "Favorites | Special System Folders | Documents"?

That's the root folder I'm talking about, but that's not how I'm getting there.

I'm talking about setting subfolders within that system Documents folder as normal Favorite locations.

That works on most machines, where the system Documents folder is local - but in this case, all user data is actually stored on the network because the main O/S is being loaded from a central image server (this is a diskless terminal). If that wasn't different enough, I'm pretty sure the network location of the user data is different from the O/S because changes outside the user data folders get wiped on reboot.

If I had to throw a wild guess, I would wonder if the way XY processes favorites related the system Documents folder uses a hardcoded interpretation of where that maps to, which doesn't work for this type of setup.

So for example you click a Favorite Folder "Documents\Donald\Songs\" and it should bring you to "Documents\Donald\Songs\" but does not? Is that node "Documents\Donald\Songs\" existing in the folder tree?

That's correct.

Yes, the folders exist, and I can browse to them manually via the tree. But when I try to get there via the Favorites menu, nothing happens.

Can you go there if you paste the same path into the address bar and ENTER?

I'll test that next week and report back.

If there are any other tests that would be helpful for me to run, let me know.

Try also these environments variables:
%personal%
%personalreal%

Okay, so I ran the tests and here are the results:


1. Can you go there if you paste the same path into the address bar and ENTER?

Same problem - nothing happens.


2. Attempt the variable %personal%

Same problem - nothing happens.


3. Attempt the variable %personalreal%

This one works properly.

As I mentioned previously, user data on this system is stored on the network, so it goes to:

\\<domain.servername.com>\<username>\Documents



I can bookmark any folder in the real location, and then the Favorites link to it will work properly.

So it's only the symbolic link that fails under this environment.

1) In Help | Environment Variables what is shown for this variables (here are my values):

%personal% = Documents
%personalreal% = C:\Users\Donald\Documents
%user% = Donald
%userreal% = C:\Users\Donald

2) Where is this folder shown in File Explorer?

%personal% = Documents
%personalreal% = \\<domain.servername.com>\<username>\Documents

I didn't check the two user values as that was edited into your post after I initially read it, but I expect the same pattern.

As to your second question about where is this folder shown in File Explorer - I wasn't sure which folder you were referring to.
The symbolic Documents folder appears in the tree no differently than any other system.

Okay, just to make sure:

1) Favorites | Special System Folders | Documents (Virtual) works, takes you to the virtual Documents folder.

2) Making the virtual Documents folder a favorite folder works as well.

3) Making a subfolder of the virtual Documents folder a favorite folder does not work. When you click the favorite in the menu "nothing happens". No error? Nothing?

1) Favorites | Special System Folders | Documents (Virtual) works, takes you to the virtual Documents folder.

No, that does not work - same problem.

However, the non-virtual one (i.e. Favorites\Special System Folders\Documents) DOES work.


2) Making the virtual Documents folder a favorite folder works as well.

No, that does not work either, for the reasons in #1.


3) Making a subfolder of the virtual Documents folder a favorite folder does not work. When you click the favorite in the menu "nothing happens". No error? Nothing?

That's correct. The pulldown menus disappear the same way they always do, but nothing actually changes and there is no error.

Hm. I absolutely don't see why this shouldn't work. Perplexed.

Completely understandable, since this is not a standard system, as the O/S is loaded from an image and user data is stored in a network location.

Since there is a workaround, it's not a critical issue - but I thought it was worth mentioning.

At this point, it's more of a curiosity about how the virtual Documents folder works and why this type of setup breaks that.