Windows Vista (and Windows Server 2008) have formalized the idea of a “public” directory–a directory on your computer where you can share files with other users. In previous versions, you had to create a folder yourself (often called “Public”) and share it. Vista has a special folder called “Public”, and subfolders named “Public Documents,” “Public Downloads,” “Public Music,” etc. If you enable public folder sharing, then files in those directories are accessible by anybody who can locate your computer on the network.

It can be a bit confusing, though. Here’s a screen shot of Windows Explorer showing the Public folder on my machine:

Looking at that, you’d expect the UNC path to my “Public Downloads” directory to be “\\JIMM\Public\Public Downloads”. But if you try it, you’ll quickly find that the path does not exist. Where, then, is it?

If you click in the address bar of Windows Explorer (image below), you’ll see that the local path to my “Public Downloads” directory is “C:\Users\Public\Downloads”.

Since the main Public directory is \\JIMM\Public (although you won’t see C:\Users\Public if you select the Public directory and then click in the address bar), then it follows that the Downloads directory would be \\JIMM\Public\Downloads. And that’s what it is.

it’s kind of confusing that the real directory name is something different from what’s shown in Windows Explorer. But I’m happy that the names don’t have embedded spaces. Filenames with embedded spaces make working with command line tools difficult.