Solved Duplicate user folders spontaneously created? Can't delete.

[Skeletron]

After moving some of my User folders from C:\Users\Steve to a location on my secondary HDD (D:\Steve), Windows 7 has spontaneously created folders in C:\Users\Steve that I cannot delete.

I moved the folders by going to Properties, Location tab, and clicking Move, and I clicked YES when asked if I wanted to move any files contained in the folders to the new location.

When I moved My Music, it created a folder named "Music" in C:\Users\Steve
When I moved My Pictures, it created a folder named "Pictures" in C:\Users\Steve
When I moved My Videos, it created a folder named "Videos" inC:\Users\Steve

Weirdly, it didn't create duplicate folders for My Documents or Downloads, which I also moved.

The folders it created are not linked to the user profile folders, as you can see in this image (they just have normal folder icons). It looks like they're just regular folders, marked as read only, containing 0 bytes, but when I try to delete them it tells me I need permission to perform this action. And if I uncheck read only, it tells me access denied.



I recently installed an SSD and a HDD in my laptop, installing the OS on the SSD and reserving the HDD for my data. I really wish Windows made it easier to just move the whole goshdarn User profile to another location, but I guess that's too much to ask.

I think this guy had the same problem that I'm having but it doesn't look like he ever got to the bottom of the issue: http://www.sevenforums.com/music-pictures-video/23467-default-user-locations-duplicate-folders.html

Any help would be much appreciated. How do I delete these folders?

 

[Brink]

Hello Skeletron, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Do you have any programs that are saving files to this location by default? If so, then it would be normal for the program to automatically recreate the folder to save to since you moved the default user folder to another location. If so, then you need to change the settings in the program to save to the new moved location instead.

If not, then you may have made a mistake when moving the user folders. Backup anything that you do not want to lose in both the duplicate and moved user folders to a different location to be safe. Afterwards, you might see if restoring the default locations of these user folders (option two at link), then try moving them again may work out better this round.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Skeletron]

Thanks, I fixed it. I turned off media streaming in Network and Sharing Center - Media Streaming Options.

 

[Brink]

That's great news. Thank you for posting back with your results.

 

[akashhhhh]

Thanks for posting this fix. It's amazing how much of this stuff is still broken two years later.