Shared Documents folder no longer accessible

Question

Windows XP has mysteriously renamed my Shared Documents folder (under "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users" ) to "Documents," and is no longer accessible in Windows Explorer. When I click on the folder, I get an error message that reads:

"C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents is not accessible. Access is denied."

I'm not exactly sure how this happened. Can anybody help?

thanks
greg

helmecj01 · Answer

Hi I would put it back to Shared Documents or do a system restore

gschrock · Answer

helmecj01: Thanks for the suggestions. However, it won't let me rename the folder (I get an error that says 'Documents is a Windows system folder and is required for Windows to run properly. It cannot be moved or renamed.' ). And I tried System Restore (I even went back 6 weeks!), but no luck.

HiGhLaNdEr48 · Answer

Check out this post by Dr mike. http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=sw_winxp&message.id=140513&query.id=19372#M140513

gschrock · Answer

Thanks for the tip. As it turns out, the solution was much simpler. Like jd232323 (the person Dr. Mike was responding to), my problem came from setting up a network. I had apparently turned off file sharing when I did that. All I needed to do was go to 'Properties' for the inaccessible folder (by right-clicking), go to the Sharing tab, and check 'Share this folder on the network.' Voila. It wouldn't let me change the name back to 'Shared Documents' (something about the name being too long), but all the files were back.

Windows General

Shared Documents folder no longer accessible

Was this post helpful?