How to Restore Default Paths for Pictures and Documents in Windows 10/11

I am currently in the process of setting up my new laptop with all the software and files. A few days ago, I showed you how to quickly download the Adobe Creative Cloud Desktop App installer, without signing into your account.

Now, I was about to copy my Lightroom catalog to my new system. By standard, Lightroom saves the catalog in your user directory in the “Pictures” folder. That’s perfect and that’s where I would like to have it. However, Windows 11 ships with all kinds of Microsoft bloatware, including OneDrive. Because of that, the default paths to folders have changed and are now set in the OneDrive folder rather than your user profile. These folders are called User Shell Folders. Because OneDrive comes pre-installed with a new installation of Windows 11 right now, these three folders are now located in the OneDrive folder under your User Profile (C:\Users\your_username\OneDrive). 

• Desktop
• Documents
• Pictures

Even if you delete the Documents or Pictures folder in the OneDrive directory, they will always come back, even when you uninstall OneDrive completely.

Normally you would be able to change the default paths of these User Shell Folders by right clicking on one of them in Windows Explorer, selecting Properties and then Location. There is even a button to restore to the default paths, but this button won’t work with the Documents and Pictures directory.

The only way to fix this is in the Windows Registry. To make changes in the Windows Registry, your user account needs to have Administrator privileges. If you make these changes and you already have files in Documents or Pictures, they won’t be moved to the new location. You will have to manually move them.

Method 1: Change values manually

The registry values you need to change to reset the default paths are located here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

For Documents, change the following values

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

• Change the path in Personal to C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

• Change the path in {24D89E24-2F19-4534-9DDE-6A6671FBB8FE} to %USERPROFILE%\Documents
• Change the path in {F42EE2D3-909F-4907-8871-4C22FC0BF756} to %USERPROFILE%\Documents
• Change the path in Personal to %USERPROFILE%\Documents

For Pictures, change the following values

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

• Change the path in My Pictures to C:\Users\your_username\Pictures

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

• Change the path in {0DDD015D-B06C-45D5-8C4C-F59713854639} to %USERPROFILE%\Pictures
• Change the path in My Pictures to %USERPROFILE%\Pictures

Method 2: Use a Batch Script

While doing my research on how to fix this problem, I found a batch script online which would reset the picture folder to the default path of C:/Users/your_username/Pictures 

It worked flawlessly for me, and I created a second script based on this one to reset the Documents folder to C:/Users/your_username/Documents

If there is already a folder called Pictures or Documents in that location, this script will create a new one. If you have files in the old folder move them after that and delete the old folder or just delete the folder if it is empty. 

Both scripts are available for download below.

Picture Script

@echo off 

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe

timeout /t 2 /nobreak>null

if not exist "%UserProfile%\Pictures" mkdir "%UserProfile%\Pictures"

reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v "My Pictures" /t REG_SZ /d "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Pictures" /f

reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v "{0DDD015D-B06C-45D5-8C4C-F59713854639}" /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d %%USERPROFILE%%"\Pictures" /f

reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v "My Pictures" /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d %%USERPROFILE%%"\Pictures" /f

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Pictures" /S /D

timeout /t 1 /nobreak>null

start explorer.exe

Document Script

@echo off 

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe

timeout /t 2 /nobreak>null

if not exist "%UserProfile%\Documents" mkdir "%UserProfile%\Documents"

reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders" /v "Personal" /t REG_SZ /d "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents" /f

reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v "{24D89E24-2F19-4534-9DDE-6A6671FBB8FE}" /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d %%USERPROFILE%%"\Documents" /f

reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v "{F42EE2D3-909F-4907-8871-4C22FC0BF756}" /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d %%USERPROFILE%%"\Documents" /f

reg add "HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v "Personal" /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d %%USERPROFILE%%"\Documents" /f

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Documents" /S /D

timeout /t 1 /nobreak>null

start explorer.exe

Conclusion

I really hate that Microsoft forces all their services and software on the user, no matter if they want it or not. It’s an abuse of their power and position in the market. Microsoft got so bad; now you need a working internet connection to even set up a new PC when you get it out of the box.

There are ways around it, but they are overly complicated. When I got my new PC, I had no internet, so my choice was either not use my PC at all or drive about an hour to get on the Internet. Yes, that might be a special case, but why? It was never a problem in the past, now they just want to force all their stuff on users.

Since the “Restore Defaults” button wasn’t working, I contacted Microsoft for help to fix their screw up and which I thought to be a simple problem. The end of story was that I only got lucky enough to get help, because I pay for office. I knew after the first few minutes of talking to the agent that she wasn’t truly knowledgeable as the stuff she told me to do.

She requested remote access and I always declined that, and my fears were right, she wanted me to activate the hidden administrator account and leave my PC vulnerable. If you don’t know Windows, you would have followed her steps and not everyone can get on your PC by logging in to the Administrator account which is not password protected.

By the way, this step was not at all needed to fix the issue. Anyway, after two hours, we got to the point, where she gave up and transferred me to Enterprise support, where they wanted a whopping $499 to fix the issue. 

I hope this was helpful for you. If you have any questions let me know in the comments below. Even let me know if it worked for you and share this post with your friends and on your favorite social media channels.