Desktop Bug? Creating Duplicate Instances Of Same File

Hi there. :)

Basically, I've recently made the long-overdue transition from a 5-years old Windows XP machine to a brand-new Windows 7 one, which I've now had for a few days. Only yesterday, what appears to be a small bug reared it's ugly head.

Any file or folder created or moved onto my Desktop is automatically duplicated with another instance of that item. I say an instance because it's not simply a copy of that file, strictly-speaking, because when the duplicate is clicked, it opens the original file. So, I'm left with two instances of the same file on my Desktop. Just to make this clearer, suppose that, as an example, I created/moved a Plain Text file onto my Desktop. A duplicate of that item would then appear. When clicked, this duplicate opens the very same file, meaning therefore, that I have two instances of the same file. In case you were wondering, the duplicate is also not a shortcut to the original file: bringing up its properties, it has the exact same properties as the originally-created one does. I hope everyone's following me so far.

As well as the strange behaviour mentioned above, the bug also affects deleting files or folders in the Desktop. As I've already said, two instances of the file are created when a file is created on the Desktop. In the same way, deleting one instance of the file also deletes the other - but not straight away. It registers as deleted, but the Desktop has to be refreshed for the other instance to disappear.

So, I've come here in the hope that someone with more computing experience than me can help me out with my problem asap. I'm studying an iMedia course at my college for which all my work is done on my computer, meaning I need my computer to be working at all times, and for as long as it isn't, it means I'm not able to get my work done, so, any and all help would be appreciated very much.

Thanks. :)

Can no-one help me out?

logicearth said:

Desktop in the Public folder is normally hidden, you can either type it into the address bar or show hidden files.

Nope, can't be a hidden folder, got hidden files/folders already set to show. It isn't actually the Desktop folder that's not there, it's the entire Public folder within users. The only two [S]users[/S] folders in my B:\Users directory iare my personal user folder, and a hidden one called Default, which has nothing in it except AppData and .dat files.

logicearth said:

How did you move the desktop folder to the second drive?

By copying the Users folder to my B: drive manually and then changing some registry values. If I recall correctly, I actually used a tutorial that was on this forum:

User Profile - Change Default Location

lehnerus2000 said:

Maybe you missed one of the Registry values.

Windows might not "like" you deleting the "Public" user folder.

It's possible that I missed a Registry value, I suppose. I changed four different Registry values, three as instructed in that tutorial and an extra one shown in another tutorial. The values I changed were the following:

1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\Default
2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList \ProfilesDirectory
3. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\Public
4. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-2847690372-1489389225-4206248361-1000\ProfileImagePath

The parts in bold are the names of the values within the keys/subkeys which were changed. All of the above were simply changed from C: to B:, to reflect the new drive that I wanted to move my Users folder to.

Any ideas as to what Registry keys I might have missed?