New AppData folder?

Hello,
I am new to the forum. Just found out something which I cannot understand..
I installed Win7 a while ago, and everything has been going smoothly. But now I noticed a new AppData folder in my user folder(on desktop). This folder is normally found inside C drive - user. This seems to be an exact copy of THAT orifinal folder. When this problem occured, start up was a little slow. There was one more newly created folder names 'searches', which was empty. I just deleted it. What should I do with the AppData folder? By the way I am running Win7 SP1.
Thanks for all your help.

The usual location for the appData folder is C:\Users\(username)\AppData

If you create a random file (for ex. a new text document) in the AppData folder that you want to delete, does that file also appear in the C:\Users\(username)\AppData folder?

Yes, it does.

Just a silly question. Are you sure that the thing on your desktop is not a shortcut?

No, it is not a shortcut. Size is 280MB. Inside there are the three folders - Local,LocalLow and Roaming.
I can hide it but why was it created? Again, when the problem first occurred, startup was somewhat slow. Not anymore, though.

Yeah, it's a directory symbolic link. You can safely remove it.

If you want to recreate it open a command prompt and use mklink:

Code:

Creates a symbolic link.

MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target

        /D      Creates a directory symbolic link.  Default is a file
                symbolic link.
        /H      Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
        /J      Creates a Directory Junction.
        Link    specifies the new symbolic link name.
        Target  specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link
                refers to.

ZyanWu said:

Yeah, it's a directory symbolic link. You can safely remove it.

If you want to recreate it open a command prompt and use mklink:

Code:

Creates a symbolic link.

MKLINK [[/D] | [/H] | [/J]] Link Target

        /D      Creates a directory symbolic link.  Default is a file
                symbolic link.
        /H      Creates a hard link instead of a symbolic link.
        /J      Creates a Directory Junction.
        Link    specifies the new symbolic link name.
        Target  specifies the path (relative or absolute) that the new link
                refers to.

sorry, I didn't quite get it. Would you please explain what I should do?

The AppData folder on your Desktop is a directory symbolic link. You can remove it if it bothers you.

If, in the near future, you want to re-create it or create another link to a specific folder you can use mklink.