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Q: Hi, Geek, I don’t know how this happened or exactly when it happened. I’m on my computer most of the day so it happened between sign out and sign in. My Documents folder in Libraries is now in My Music folder in Libraries. I can’t move it back because Libraries won’t accept it. I can’t establish a New Folder in Libraries. I can’t copy and paste because Libraries won’t let me. It’s not a catastrophe, but it is a pain and it bugs me a little that I don’t know how it happened. Maybe happened during the numerous ‘updates’ Bill sent us recently. Got any ideas?

– Kay B.
Niceville, Florida

A: Why of course I do, Kay!  My first idea is that you are mistaking “Libraries” for “Folders”.  My second idea is that the mouse button got inadvertently clicked while the mouse was being moved, effectively dragging and dropping your My Documents folder into Music library (yes, this happens instantly, without so much as an “Are you sure?” box.  Thanks, Bill!).  My third idea is that you can’t move it “back” to Libraries because that’s not where it came from, and the only thing that can go in “Libraries” are, well, libraries, and “My Documents” is a folder.  Did that fix you right up?  Oh, alright!  Let me explain further.

Libraries are a concept introduced in Win7 to assist you to organize and manage your files.  When you are looking at “Libraries” on your computer, you are actually looking at collections of different locations, aggregated under unifying headings.  In many ways, libraries behave like folders; for example, you can browse them, and arrange files by their attributes like date, size, and type.  However, unlike folders, libraries do not actually store anything.  What you are seeing is content that has been included in the library, but which actually exists elsewhere on your computer.  I know this sounds confusing, because it confounded me when I first saw it, so let me give you a real example.  Let’s say you’re signed in to Windows as user “KayB”.  When you open a File Explorer, in the navigation pane you’re going to see the heading “Libraries” and underneath it, will be Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos, as well as any others that may have been added by you, or by software you run.  Click on Documents, and you’ll see the contents of what used to be called “My Documents”, right?  Wrong.  You’re looking at the Documents library, which if you examine the address bar, doesn’t really have a physical location on your computer – it just says Libraries\Documents.  Now try this: Open another file browser, and click on “Computer” in the navigation pane.  Then click on drive C:, then into folder “Users”.  For the example above, you’d continue to drill down by clicking on the “KayB” folder, but click into whatever folder matches your current username.  Now click into “My Documents” ( the folder, not the shortcut, if there is one).  Notice anything?  These seem to be the same files we were looking at in the Documents library, but look at the Address bar.  You should be in C:\Users\KayB\Documents, which is the actual physical location where the files reside that are included in the Documents library.  In fact, if you go back to the other window, and right click on the Documents library and select Properties, you’ll see the list of locations that are included in the library (note that there is more than one location – remember that libraries aggregate locations under a single name).  In your particular case, Kay, you might not actually find the “Documents” directory here, because the whole point of your letter was that it got moved.  However, now that you know the difference between the Library and the actual, physical location, you should be able to move it back where it belongs by simply cutting it out of “Music” and pasting it into whatever is your equivalent of the C:\Users\KayB\ folder in the example.  You can’t paste or drag it under the “Libraries” heading, because the only thing that can go there are libraries and it is a Folder.

There are lots of cool things you can do with libraries once you learn how they work.  You can learn more in the Windows Help system by clicking Start->Help and Support, then entering “Libraries” in the search box.