Monday, September 12, 2011

%PUBLIC%\Desktop

Windows 7 - Fresh out the Box!


Not wanting to completely destroy the newly purchased Windows 7 operating system, I wanted to tinker a bit. Attempting to install VM-Ware Workstation on Windows 7, I was presented with quite a challenging task. After proceeding through the standard installation steps, I was delightfully prompted/alerted that the following network location: %DESKTOP%\Desktop was not accessible?

Imagine that...

At this point, the basic operation/configuration tasks in Windows have proved to be rather cumbersome. Already highly frustrated with the fact I've given Windows 7 the benefit of the doubt and neglected to install any flavor of LINUX ..o0( BackTrack 5). I figured would deploy a much needed dose of #!/bin/bash in a virtual environment. However, this left me loathing M$ even more than previously mentioned.

After scouring the  dark alleys and corners of the web, several M$ knowledge base articles later, a downloaded MicrosoftFixit50356.msi, a couple peeks at the registry,  a potentially malicious .vbs file from the depths of the inter-webs, a code review, multiple reboots, and a cup of JOE, I stumbled across the following solution.

How to resolve M$'s error 1606 while installing VM-Ware Workstation!
  1. Go to Start --> Run, type regedit, and click OK.
  2. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders 
  3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders.
  4. Right Click on the corresponding registry value and select "Modify". Change the existing %PUBLIC% to the following %USERPROFILE% as shown below.

    Windows XP / Server 2003

    Name Data value
    Desktop %USERPROFILE%\Desktop
    My Music %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Music
    My Pictures %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Pictures
    Personal %USERPROFILE%\My Documents

    Windows Vista / 7
     / Server 2008

    Name Data value
    Desktop%USERPROFILE%\Desktop
    My Music %USERPROFILE%\Music
    My Pictures %USERPROFILE%\Pictures
    Personal %USERPROFILE%\Documents

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