Double user folders after moving to location on other drive

sliding · 03 Aug 2018

On my wife's PC with Windows 10 home most of the location of the user folders such as Documents, Downloads, etc. had to be moved to folders on another drive since the SSD C:\ drive filled up too much.

I used the option available in Windows by opening the folder properties windows and then from the "location" tab, the folders locations were changed from e.g. C:\users\her-name\downloads to D:\Her-Name-folder\downloads.
Just the standaard procedure. Windows 10 is up to date to the latest version.

It happened some months ago, after her PC freezed for some reason and a hard reboot was the only option. It's a normal user account.

The strange thing is that one of the double folders that show up in Explorer contaains the data, while the other is empty. The problem is user specific.
On another account (Admin) everything is normal.
I can see all of her data in D:\Her-Name-folder\the-moved-folders....
When I look into C:\users\her-name I see all standard user folders, but of course all are empty except for the hidden one ..\Appdata that has not been moved.

Now that I have to help her cleaning up her PC, I also want to solve this double folder problem.
Is there a solution to solve it e.g. by changes in the register and if so, where to look

Thank in advance for any help,

Cesar

Barman58 · 03 Aug 2018

It would appear that for some reason the Location move did not work correctly.

As you have one location, (or set of locations), that are correct and one that is not I would follow the following procedure ...

For each location ...

Go to the D: drive and the location you wish to correct and click on Restore Default, when prompted do not choose to move the content, complete the procedure. This will leave you with a D: folder with the correct content that is correctly marked as the special user folder.

Repeat this for each folder you wish to correct

Now go the the original Special folders under the username and follow the change location procedure but this time select Yes to move the content, (files), even though there are no files there, and select the relevant folder on the D: drive, (Documents to Documents Etc. )

Again repeat for each folder ...

Once you have followed this procedure hopefully the old locations under username should be automatically removed but if not it should be safe to manually remove them.

I would probably do one and then check that it's fully working before all but it is normally a safe procedure

Try3 · 03 Aug 2018

Cesar,

This can happen sometimes and it does no harm. Personally, I think you are right to suspect that it happened when the computer froze but I have not seen any proof of that.

If you right-click on the unexpected folders within C:\Users\UserName, you will find that they have no location tab and are therefore just normal folders that you can move files out of then delete without causing any problems.

If any of them do have a location tab then you should find that the proper one does not so you can just redo the relocation procedure.

Denis

sliding · 03 Aug 2018

Thanks Denis,
I'll try and do as you described

Cesar

sliding · 04 Aug 2018

Hi Dennis,

If you delete the empty ones being the current user, both disappear from explorer. In the trash can there is just one, the empty one. After setting it back from the trashcan, both become visible again.
Removing the empty ones only works when doing it as admin on the user account.

When searching for this problem, I noticed that some are suspecting that the problem is related to Onedrive.
In my wife's case it's not since it is not used. Others think it is caused because of moving folders to another drive by changing.

Try3 · 04 Aug 2018

Cesar,

I do not understand what you are trying to tell me. Is there a problem?

Denis