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How to actually change the default save location

Anonymous
2017-11-13T19:02:28+00:00

The question is “Is there any way to actually change the default save location” for Documents especially?  I apologize for the description but most of it is relevant to the question.

So I just recently did a clean install for the 1709 update and when through the what’s new and saw the “change where new content is saved”… not understanding why only the drive instead of an actual directory but maybe?!  Anyway, I started the normal ritual of fighting windows to get things where I would like instead of where they would like it. So I:

  • Moved the OneDrive location after my initial logon forced it in the OS drive
  • Turned the OneDrive autosave for everything to “This PC Only”
  • Moved Documents, Downloads, etc by going to Properties -> Location
  • Changed the Settings Storage Locations to the drive where things actually are
  • Changed the Temp Environment Variables to a drive that is cleared during a restart
  • Created junctions for things like user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook
  • Installed programs then changed the save locations as needed
  • Did other tedious things that I really shouldn’t need to do if there was a place that I could change the default save location

After the installs I sat down to watch football while playing a game or handling some little stuff when I see my game saves and word docs being saved to the OneDrive Documents folder instead of the PC Documents folder like they should be.  After looking through things for way to long I changed the OneDrive autosaves to “OneDrive” then back to “This PC Only”.  Now every Microsoft product is back pointing to C:/user/Documents after creating a folder that previously did not exist instead of going to the default document location located on a different drive.

Don’t get me wrong OneDrive it great I just don’t want things that I only use on my main PC cluttering it up.

Any bets on the first response directing me to Settings -> Storage -> Change where new content is saved.

[Moved from: Windows / Windows 10 / Windows settings]

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-11-13T19:59:53+00:00

    I understand you can change it in word and tried to point out that I have done that exact thing two times after that clean install.  I tried to explaining by the long description that this is not relevant to one program but to the operating system and why I thought the question is a Windows setting question.

    For example OneDrive has a user environment variable and when I changed the OneDrive autosave to "OneDrive" all my programs that use the documents folder to save start saving to the OneDrive documents folder instead of PC documents folder.  However, when I change the OneDrive autosave  to "This PC Only” instead of going to the documents folder I mentioned I moved it creates a new directory on my OS drive (C:/user/documents).

    The question is it possible to actually change the default save locations on my PC?  Like the user environment variable for OneDrive.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-11-13T19:30:16+00:00

    Change the location that Word saves to and opens from in Word.

    Go to File>Options>Save and change the default there.

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-11-21T15:53:01+00:00

    Hi Luke,

    We appreciate the time you took to let us know about the issue you are experiencing with changing the default save location and for sharing with us the troubleshooting steps you have taken so far. Since this feature isn't functioning the way it should in spite of performing the troubleshooting steps you mentioned, we highly encourage you to report the issue through the Windows Feedback Hub. Feedback items regularly receive Microsoft responses on the submissions in the Feedback app so you can see what we are doing about your feedback. To report this issue or upvote an existing feedback item, follow the steps provided on this link.

    Feel free to get back to us if we can help you with anything else.

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