Document Folder

Synfire does place the config file on F:

That's ok. Your config is part of your project files.

C:\Users\Public\Documents\Synfire\Examples is the correct folder. A folder C:\Users\Public Documents should not exist because Public Documents is not a user name (probably).

Does C:\Users\Public\Documents exist?

Synfire queries this folder with CSIDL_COMMON_DOCUMENTS. If it points to somewhere else on your computer, you may need to check environment variables.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/usmt/usmt-recognized-environment-variables

Variable %PUBLIC% seems to be responsible here.

Your personal Documents folder can be anywhere. It's not related to the common documents folder.

I don't know what might have changed your public documents variable to something different.

You could create the examples folder where Synfire expects it and simply move the examples over to there. Maybe next time you install an update it will use this folder. 

Have not heard of it before. Possibly it's specific to your computer.

You should be able to create the folder like any other folder. The name "Documents" doesn't make it any special or a protected thing.

It looks like "Public Documents" is merely an alias to a hidden physical name "Documents". This is used for localization, for example in German the folder is called "Öffentliche Dokumente" but essentially points to the same physical folder.

If so you should not create the folder.

This is pretty confusing. As said, Synfire does not use any literal folder name. If merely refers to CSIDL_COMMON_DOCUMENTS and it is Window's responsibility to map that to a filename.

If you say it takes ages to find the examples, how does this manifest itself? Do you need to manually browse the directory tree? Or does it simply take along time for the folder to show up?