Before we delve into the various shell locations, like Computer, Documents, and Control Panel, I'd like to explain how the shell namespace has changed in Windows Vista. While the goal was to make the shell easier to navigate, my fear is that the changes will simply confuse people. I'm not a complete idiot, rumors aside, and I still find it a bit confusing. Here's what's happening.
In Windows XP and 2000, Microsoft introduced the concept of the Documents and Settings folder structure (previously, there was a Users folder in the C:\winnt folder in Windows NT 4.0). Under this folder are folders for each user account, so in my Windows XP system, I see a folder for Paul as well as a folder for All Users, which contains information that applies to, well, all users.
In XP, you also see various folders such as Desktop, Favorites, My Documents, and Start Menu under the Paul folder. And inside of My Documents, you see three special shell folders: My Music, My Pictures, and My Videos.
In Windows Vista Beta 1, Microsoft has blown most of that away. Instead of a Documents and Settings folder in the root of the system drive, you'll see a Users folder. And inside of that folder, you'll see folders for individual users (Paul and Administrator, for example) and a UNIX-like folder called Public (
Figure). OK, let's navigate in a little further. Inside of the Paul folder are several folders: Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Favorites, Music, Pictures, Videos, and Virtual Folders (
Figure). Note that Music, Pictures, and Video are no longer subfolders under Documents.
As with XP, all of these folders are "real" folders. That is, they exist at a discrete place in the shell hierarchy and can contain real files and folders. They are literally identical to folders in XP. However, Windows Vista, as you may know, also introduces the concept of Virtual Folders. These are not "real" folders but are instead XML-based containers for links to other files and folders. Virtual Folders do not "contain" anything. Instead, Virtual Folders point to lists of other files and aggregate data in meaningful ways.
Think back to when Windows 95 first shipped. Windows 95 let you create shortcuts to documents and folders in more easily accessible places (typically the desktop). In the same vein, Virtual Folders let you round up related files and folders in more easily accessible places as well. But Virtual Folders are far more powerful than simple shortcuts. That's because Virtual Folders are smart--that is, they update dynamically--and because they make it easier for you to organize your data in ways that make sense to you.
Windows Vista Beta 1 ships with a number of canned Virtual Folders that address obvious needs, and some of them are available right from the Start Menu. Stupidly, some of them are named the same as "real" folders, which is where some of the confusion sets in. So when you click on the Documents link in the Start menu, for example, that opens C:\Users\Paul\Virtual Folders\All Documents and not C:\Users\Paul\Documents as you might expect (
Figure). The former (All Documents) is a Virtual Folder that automatically aggregates all of the documents on your hard drive, regardless of their location, while the latter (Documents) is the modern day equivalent of My Documents: It's just a regular folder, and when you save document files from an application like Microsoft Word, that's where they'll go by default.
This distinction is important. As I said before, Virtual Folders don't actually contain anything per se. They're not "real" folders. You can't save a document to the All Documents Virtual Folder, but you can save a document to the Documents folder. Once you've saved that file, however, it will appear in both locations (
Figure). Yep, it's confusing.
Microsoft continues this naming nightmare with other Start Menu links. The Pictures link (
Figure) actually opens a Virtual Folder called "All Pictures and Videos" (and not C:\Users\Paul\Pictures). The Music link (
Figure) opens a Virtual Folder called "Albums" (and not C:\Users\Paul\Music).
Regardless of the naming confusing, the new namespace is a good thing and the best solution we'll have until Microsoft takes the bold (and, if I may say so, long overdue) step of ridding Windows of the limiting drive letter-based file system we still use. That's because the average Windows user will never have to worry about drive letters with Windows Vista. Virtual Folders make Windows Vista friendlier to use. In most cases.
One exception is a clean install where you intend to copy over data from a network share or external hard drive. Let's say you just did a clean install of Windows Vista and you'd like to copy over all your photos, music files, and other documents. You can't copy photos, for example, into the "All Pictures and Videos" Virtual Folder, which is what you get when you click Pictures on the Start Menu. Instead, you need to open up the "real" Pictures folder. Fortunately, a link to the Pictures folder is found in the Navigation Pane (on the left) in the All Pictures and Videos window. Similar links can be found in Albums and All Documents, naturally.
Virtual Folders are a neat concept, and like I noted earlier, Windows Vista Beta 1 ships with a number of them (like All Videos, Favorite Music, Artists, and so on). But the real power of Virtual Folders is that you can create your own. At its heart, a Virtual Folder is really just the visual results of a query against a database that contains a list of the content that is stored on your hard drive. As with any database query, you can filter down the results list to match certain criteria. And of course you can create your own queries and, thus, your own Virtual Folders. I'll look at this process in an upcoming Technology Showcase.