Have you ever wondered what is the “Shared Documents” folder doing in My Computer?

Shared Documents, Shared Pictures, and Shared Music provide a place for you to store files, pictures, and music that everyone on your computer can access. For example, Billy can put his homework in Shared Documents so that dad can check his work. And mom can put digital pictures from the family vacation in Shared Pictures so that the whole family can see them. The contents of the shared folders are always available to anyone who uses your computer.

I am the only user in my laptop and I don’t need this folder as it is useless. Here’s how to remove or disable Shared Documents from My Computer.

You can’t delete the Shared Documents from My Computer. Try right clicking on Shared Documents folder and you can’t find the delete menu. Pressing the Delete key on your keyboard will do nothing as well.

The actual Shared Documents folder is actually located at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Shared Documents. Try deleting, renaming or moving the folder and you’ll get the error message “Documents is a Windows system folder and is required for Windows to run properly. It cannot be moved or renamed.”

To remove or disable Shared Documents from My Computer in Windows XP Professional:
1. Go the the Start menu, and click on Run
2. Type gpedit.msc
3. Now go to User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components and click on Windows Explorer.
4. In here, you’ll see the option Remove Shared Documents from My Computer. Double click on that, select Enabled, and click OK.

For Windows XP Home, you need to manually edit your registry because it doesn’t come with Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc). This method can also work on Windows XP Professional.
1. Go the the Start menu, and click on Run
2. Type regedit
3. Navigate to:


4. Right-click in the white area in the right pane, select New and pick “DWORD Value”
5. Name it NoSharedDocuments
6. Give it a value of 1
7. Reboot (or log off and log back in)

There is also ANOTHER registry key which you can delete and the Shared Documents will be removed from My Computer. Take note that after deleting this key, re-enabling Shared Documents from gpedit.msc won’t work. So make sure you backup this registry key using the “Export” command.
1. Go the the Start menu, and click on Run
2. Type regedit
3. Navigate to:


4. Locate and delete the key: {59031a47-3f72-44a7-89c5-5595fe6b30ee}
5. Reboot

No more Shared Documents folder in My Computer!

[tags]shared documents, windows, microsoft, folder, DelegateFolders[/tags]