Duplicate Downloads folder keeps appearing

MaloK said:

I don't play a lot with that, I know you can change the link Icon with "Customize". But it doesn't remove the shortcut arrow.

Any idea why Downloads shows a shortcut arrow at all? Is that because it's a junction? I thought the idea of those was that the file system saw it as a real folder, not a shortcut.

I still don't understand why Windows is doing odd things with Downloads, when I treated it exactly the same as Music and Pictures.

Thanks again.

Not sure what you mean by odd, Junctions are always displayed as shortcuts in windows the only one that would not show like that are Hard Links but they cannot be created between different drives.

There are ways to remove those Shortcut Arrows but I never bothered to try.

MaloK said:

Not sure what you mean by odd, Junctions are always displayed as shortcuts in windows the only one that would not show like that are Hard Links but they cannot be created between different drives.

Ah, shows how much I know about junctions then doesn't it!

Which leaves me with the choice of having a bland icon and a shortcut arrow on my Downloads folder, or going back to where I was before and having a duplicate Downloads folder.

All very odd and quite annoying.

Thanks for all the help.

On a hunch, I just tested something and it worked (for me at least).

If the target folder of your junction has a custom icon, setting the ReadOnly attribute for the junction will cause it to use the cusomized icon of its target.

1. Open a PowerShell window to C:\users\user
2. Copy & Paste the following command:
   ($DL = gi Downloads).Attributes = $DL.Attributes -bor [IO.FIleAttributes]::ReadOnly

@KeithM, that worked out of the box for me too.

Then I used this reg mod to get rid of the shortcut arrow. (Note: this is system wide)

RemoveArrow.reg

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons]
"29"="%windir%\\System32\\shell32.dll,-50"

Needs to reboot.



Link is Highlighted.

@KeithM, thanks for the suggestion. Not sure why, but this only seems to work when I look in C:\Users\Me, whereas if I go directly to the user icon in the left panel in File Explorer, the icon isn't picked up.

This isn't the end of the world, except that in the C:\Users\Me view, my Music and Pictures folders aren't shown, probably because I changed the location. I guess I could add junctions for them as well, but this seems like a painful way to go about all of this. Can't see why Windows makes it so hard!

Thanks again.

Maybe it's just your favorites that are to address...

I created links from both Downloads and the link...


The favourite created from the link doesn't have the good icon

Yossu said:

@KeithM, thanks for the suggestion. Not sure why, but this only seems to work when I look in C:\Users\Me, whereas if I go directly to the user icon in the left panel in File Explorer, the icon isn't picked up.
Thanks again.

Do you mean the <LongUserName>folder on the Desktop, the one that opens when you paste shell:UsersFilesFolder into the Address bar? That might be displaying a plain icon as a result of icon caching --- it might "catch up" afrer a while...

KeithM said:

Do you mean the <LongUserName>folder on the Desktop, the one that opens when you paste shell:UsersFilesFolder into the Address bar? That might be displaying a plain icon as a result of icon caching --- it might "catch up" afrer a while...

Ah, didn't know about that trick! You're right, it just hadn't updated yet.

Thanks

Yossu said:

Ah, didn't know about that trick! You're right, it just hadn't updated yet.

Thanks

Good news, as that was a hunch, not something I was sure of...