Duplicate folders

Thanks for having me on these boards.

This is a new laptop preinstalled with W10 x64.

Under 'This PC' I have a bunch of folders: 3D objects, Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos.

Under 'Users/howar': I have the same set of folders plus some more, e.g. Favorites, Links, One Drive.

Under 'One Drive': I have Attachments, Desktop, Documents, Email attachments, Music, and some more.
(One drive is disabled).

So I have downloads, documents, and music folders and files all over the place. I should not have to check multiple folders to find a file. This set up makes it near impossible to manage files.

What is going on and how can I simplify things? I am the only user and run as administrator.

Thanks for any advice.

John

Hello John,

Actually it is not as bad as it looks since some of the folders all point to the same place. Libraries are a way to bring everything together and the documents, music, pictures and videos libraries are already set up to do this.

See Include Folder to Library in Windows 10 for more details of adding folders to libraries.

Thanks to both.

philc43 said:

Hello John,

Actually it is not as bad as it looks since some of the folders all point to the same place. Libraries are a way to bring everything together and the documents, music, pictures and videos libraries are already set up to do this.

See Include Folder to Library in Windows 10 for more details of adding folders to libraries.

I tried these suggestions but got nowhere. The files in C:/users/howar/Documents never appeared in the Library/Documents folder when 'Added'.

To make matters worse, I am constantly bombarded with this:



Try as I may I cannot get rid of it when scrolling with the touchpad. I have disabled all but the essential features of the touchpad and uninstalled all bloatware.

I am coming to the conclusion that I should re-format the HDD and install W7 x64. Or am I jumping the gun? I am 70 years and running low on time....every day counts!

This just about explains why I am getting different files in my various Documents folders. But it doesn't tell me how to put things right.

Windows 10 Documents folder in This PC is different from - Microsoft Community
March 23 post

W10 has decided that the user (me) is different from the owner of This PC (me). Therefore it has produced a second set of folders, the contents of which are not always the same, not to mention the contents of the (supposedly disabled) One Drive version of Documents.

You see, MS gave me a user name - howar, which is not my login name on the PC - howard. Why it shortened 'howard' to 'howar' I have no idea but it cannot be edited. I am not going to change my login name to 'howar' just to please Microsoft. Rant over!

Windows 7, here I come!

I think I can explain the howar part. When you install W10 Microsoft asks you to setup as either a Microsoft account or an offline user. I'm guessing you provided an email address and set up as a Microsoft account. Your user folder gets named from the first 5 characters of your email address.

An alternative is to set up as an offline account and provide a user name of your own and this then gets used as your user folder name and login name. Later on you can change it to a Microsoft account and it will preserve your folder name the same as you originally set it up, changing your login ID to the email used for your Microsoft account.

Thanks again, philc43.

Yes, I did set up with an MS account - very unwisely as its turned out. Just why MS only allows 5 letters in a user name is typically arcane.

Rather than give up, I've set up a local account and will attempt to disentangle myself from One Drive and other features in W10 which cause difficulties for me.

Any idea why I'm being pestered by the black Search Box? Cortana is hidden/disabled.

Regards,
John

Hi John,

I do not have a tablet myself so I am not familiar with the way search works in tablet mode. I suggest you look at the following tutorial and also the related tutorials listed at the end. Hopefully there will be some inspiration there for things you can try.

Hide or Show Search Box or Cortana Icon on Taskbar in Windows 10

I'm not in tablet mode. Not sure where that came from???

But thanks for the link.

John

Have a look at this:

Search bar pops up randomly - Microsoft Community