Opening old xp profile folder leaves hidden files

[ppauer]

My older xp computer's power supply went bust and destroyed the motherboard. Thankfully, the hard drive was ok. When I bought a new computer I put the old hard drive into an external enclosure and connected it to transfer files over. When I opened \Documents and Settings\profile I got some message about needing permission to open the folder but after a minute or so the folder opened. After disconnecting the drive, if I open the user folder on my new computer and turn off "hide protected operating system files" there are shortcuts to the profile folders on the disconnected drive. Any idea why this happened or how I get rid of them?

 

[seekermeister]

Assuming that the new computer is running W7, it does not use Documents and Settings like in XP. Where you see Documents and settings in W7, it is merely a junction, rather than a folder. It is not clear whether you actually transferred the files to the new drive or not, but I suspect that you didn't, and that is why it is still pointing to the old drive. How did you transfer the files, where did you put them and what kind of files are they in general?

 

[ppauer]

The new system is windows 7. when I say that I opened \Documents and Settings\profile I mean on the external drive (the old xp installation). I only opened my documents, dragged over some files (music files) that had not been in my latest backup, closed explorer and disconnected the external drive. But it seems that 7 is holding onto links to that old profile.

 

[seekermeister]

I know what I would try, but many would disagree with me. If the files that you actually transferred are properly functional, I would use my reg cleaner to search for and remove the broken links.

 

[ppauer]

Everything seems fine, it's really not a big deal. I was wondering more why just copying files from an external drive made changes to my new system. It also renamed "Documents" to "My Documents" and "Music" to "My Music" like in XP. I guess I'll just hide the system files and ignore it.

 

[richc46]

Everything seems fine, it's really not a big deal. I was wondering more why just copying files from an external drive made changes to my new system. It also renamed "Documents" to "My Documents" and "Music" to "My Music" like in XP. I guess I'll just hide the system files and ignore it.

I think that is the best way to go. Most problems that I try to solve are because the Poster, tried to "improve" the OS.

 

[surfasb]

Microsoft provides a tool to migrate your old profile. It's called the User State Migration Tool.

 

[PoPPeR]

you can only use USMT if you're actually in the OS. in this case, it's a slave drive. check the properties of those ghost shortcut files, see where they're pointed. since they're temp files then they're hidden by default. kill THEM!!!