Two folders with identical (i.e., duplicate) names

Anonymous

When I look at my drive E in the Windows Explorer, I have two folders named \Users in the root (using Vista with the lastest updates). When I look from a cmd box, I only see one.

I think the second one was created when I used Vista's robocopy to backup my C files onto E (e.g. "robocopy c:\Users\Steve e:\Users\Steve"), but (1) I didn't think you could end up with duplicate names in the same folder and (2) how can I specify which of the two files I want to copy files to?

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Anonymous

You can't have two folders with the same name in the same directory - something must be different (maybe an underscore at the end of one or something else). I have no idea how or why this happened. When you scroll through each of the folders are they identical in terms of contents (same folders, same files, you can open files from both folders,...)? I'm not familiar with robocopy so I'm not sure if that was responsible (though it seems likely). If they are identical in all respects, just delete one and use the other one (or better, remame one to something else and save it elsewhere "just in case" - at least until you're sure the folder you selected is working properly and there are no problems. I'd give a month and then delete the other folder.

If you see only one in cmd then move some file to a different directory and then ccheck on Windows Explorer to see in which folder the change occurred (and verify it didn't occur in both). Then you'll know which folder to use and which to rename are indicated above.

I hope this helps.

Good luck.

Lorien - MCSE/MCSA/Network+/A+ --- If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.

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Anonymous

2011-09-15T09:16:41+00:00

I have a similar problem. Didn't know windows could do this!

I am running Win 7 ultimate x64. I recently installed Titanium Studio which asks for a project folder. You can't select "libraries" so I pointed it to the path of my Documents folder - which is not on the usual C but on another drive. ie: I've moved the library. It then created the documents folder!? I now have 2 Documents folders on my D drive. The one contains the studio files and the other is my documents - this is causing much confusion. I'm going to remove Studio based on this.

No program should exist on my machine that cause such havoc and doesn't conform to windows standards.

When I say it created the folder, in explorer its clearly there. It can be renamed without affecting the true doc folder. There is no difference in name. HOWEVER in DOS it's not there. Only 1 documents folder appears, AND if I navigate to the documents folder its the studio folder NOT my documents folder. FAIL!

I'm not looking for an answer because removing Titanium and deleting the folder will hopefully work BUT this is a windows nightmare. My indexing and windows search is rotten, backups fail, apps are locating wrong. This needs attention from Microsoft.
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Anonymous

2011-06-27T10:14:21+00:00

Sorry, you're wrong: I have multiple folders with identical names - so much so, that if I rename one of them, the others rename as well!

The contents are different and by looking at the owner in properties, I can see what the real folder name should be (mine are in the Home folders folder, so if I know the owner, I can deduce the name of the folder.) Strangely, I can't rename them to their correct names, because changing one name changes them all.

I suspect that the real answer here is that it's the silly windows policy of not displaying the real folder name (as epitomised in "Freds Documents", "Freds videos", etc.. I think the real folder names are UIDs and Windows is simply getting confused as to what display name it should show. Unfortunately I don't understand the Windows false display name technology - I just wish it didn't exist!.

What I've deduced so far is that the unique folder name (which, as you say, MUST be the case) is mapped to a display name through some sort of lookup and this lookup table is corrupted.

What I suspect is that the UIDs are not contained in the table, but have a table offset linked to them. So several UIDs could erroneously get the same offset to a single name entry. Changing this name affects the displayed name of all those UIDs.

The only way I've been able to deal with this problem, is to manually create new folders (using a different naming convention), then copy files from the bad folders into the new ones.

In my experience, this affects only folders created through active directory - I've never seen it in user created folders or files.

If viewed through a cmd window, the correct folder names are shown. I gues this imitates the DOS behaviour of reading the folder name from the disk index and bypasses all the Windows pseudo-naming system.

Don Brown
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Anonymous

2011-02-07T15:25:18+00:00

You are using Windows 7. The OP is running Vista. If you don't want to ask new question in a Win7 forum, suit yourself.

P.S. This is a peer to peer forum. Most of us are volunteers and do not work for Microsoft. And nobody here fixes any problems wit operating systems. Microsoft does that.

Leave Windows 7 Feedbackhttp://mymfe.microsoft.com/Windows%207/Feedback.aspx?formID=195

I am ignoring this thread.

Bruce Hagen

MS-MVP Oct. 1, 2004 ~ Sept. 30, 2010

Imperial Beach, CA
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Anonymous

2011-02-07T08:21:34+00:00

oookay, fine. Semantics are lovely, and if someone official marked Lorien - One's post as "the answer," that's even worse than if he had done it himself.

And I think it's completely appropriate to post in a 9 month-old thread. Because a dead thread that has an "answer" marked--that isn't an answer for an issue that persists for other users--is useless to both users and support personnel. Because a 9 month-old dead thread marked as "answered" would lead the unwary consumer & support personnel to believe that the issue is solved.

When it clearly is not . And considering the volume of similar posts/questions to this one, all without real answers... this issue is far from solved.

And I did start my own thread. Except the clunksocial.answers.microsoft.comst, as well as replies to several other similar threads. I'm actually surprised that my post to this thread worked, as this was the second or third thread (regarding this issue) that I posted to, and the only one that actually went through and posted. I'm sure my issues getting posts to actually, y'know,post , are unrelated to this bizarre duplicate folder name issue, but that's the reason why my post actually appeared here for you to give me that oh-so-trenchant advice.

I think it's lovely that you could put so much effort into giving me advice on starting a new thread (to go with the others all commenting on this problem or ones similar to and/or related to it), rather than actually addressing the problem.

But then, since the question is marked as "answered," there's no real reason to put any effort into fixing the problem, is there?

See how neatly that works out? There's a reason why consumers try to be "squeaky wheels": otherwise, they'd never get greased.
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