Windows 7: desktop folder not really a shortcut

So here's something weird.
On a firends computer, he has a folder on the desktop that appears to be a duplicate of the users folder in the Users folder. It shows it's on the desktop when you open the Computer icon and in your browse window it's there. You can select it and it opens up and it's exactly the same as the user folder of the same name.
If you right click it, you don't reaaqlly get anything. It doesn't have a shortcut display either.
If you look at the actual desktop, it's not there. Only in the browse window. I finally got fed up and just deleted it and it started deleting the same files in the user folder so I stopped.
I would like to get rid of it but I don't know how

In the long distant days of MS-DOS, this would happen if folders of files got crosslinked. A directory would apparently contain itself and so on to infinity.

Now with the increasing use of hard links and junctions in NTFS This sort of problem is appearing again.

In the old days we would run chkdsk /f

Try running scandisk at next boot.

I am going to comment because I have had at times a similar problem. I like the explanation of cross linked files. This has happened to me twice. It occurred at c:\documents and settings\"user me"\application data\. Under application data there would be another application data and under that another application data and so on until the name was too long for windows. I solve it by deleting the second one down with no adverse effects.

Our we going back to DOS? I might welcome that.

In yhr Documents & Settings folder, there is only the one "proper" user folder. I will try the scan disk thing.

One way to tell if the desktop folder is a shortcut or the actual folder is to go into its Properties and check the size. This will tell you if it's the real thing or just a shortcut.

Also, this may not be the case with this situation, but sometimes when you inadvertently check "Show hidden files" you get all kinds of files showing up on your Desktop that are the real file (not a shortcut) and you really don't want them there. To make them disappear again, you have to uncheck Show hidden files.

What worries me is the Documents & Settings folder you're seeing, it's from XP and should not be visible in Vista/7.

Opps, my mistake. Everything I said is correct except there is NO Documents & Settings. As you say. That's from XP (again as you stated) and I am just so used to that system that I wrote the path statement without thinking. It's actually C:\Users\jon*

* Jon is the name of the user folder in question.

sorry about that.