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

I have a similar problem, so do not be snippy.  Somehow I have two identical folder called Download in my user directory.  This happened when I moved the folder using Properties Move and then moved it back.  They are absolutely identical with the same contents in the same user (my) user directory.  They both act as library files.  They cannot be deleted witout both of them being deleted...and then all of Windows Explorer will not even launch.

This is a horrible bug.

It sounds like you're using Windows 7 ("library"). My two folders had different contents (I ended up copying the contents of both folders to a third folder, and then deleting the first two). If your folder contents are identical, it sounds like they might be references (I'm not sure of the termonology) to the same physcial folder rather than two different folders.

I'm pretty well versed now in the concept of the Libraries and I can understand now, how, "within a Library" you can have two folders or files with the same name.

However, like the original poster, I am seeing these duplicate folder names OUTSIDE of my libraries. This is what is highly perplexing to me. To be more specific, I have a folder on my external drive called "My Documents". I have a folder on my Windows 7 pc called "C:\Users\Bill\Documents". I want to copy the contents of the latter folder into the folder called "My Documents" on the backup drive. When I run a Robocopy, using the syntax:

Call "C:\Program Files\Robocopy\Robocopy.exe" "C:\Users\Bill\Documents" "E:\My Documents" /MIR /R:2

...(which I've run a million times before in XP), rather than merging file changes with the existing My Documents folder, instead it creates a duplicate folder called My Documents on my external drive, so my EXTERNAL DRIVE looks like this:

My Documents

My Documents

Why is this happening outside of the library structure? The properties should be identical. Could it be a difference in permissions, and if so, why? I need to understand why this happens outside of the Library structure.

I downloaded the Robocopy GUI tool and used it successfully to synch files on my backup drive rather create a duplicate folder. When I saved the selected commands I chose from the GUI to a CMD file, it spit out the following:

robocopy "C:\Users\Bill\Documents" "E:\My Documents" /MIR /V /NP /R:10 /W:30

My original syntax was: robocopy "C:\Users\Bill\Documents" "E:\My Documents" /MIR /R:2

The /V switch has to do with verbose output (logging I assume). The /NP switch displays an estimated completion time message. /R:10 just increases the retry attempts from 2 to 10, and the /W:30 switch just waits 30 seconds between retries.

None of the differences between my original script and the switches the GUI added by default seem to explain why the original copy was creating duplicate folders. I also noticed that my original Robocopy.exe was a slightly older version than the one that comes with Windows 7, but that didn't seem to matter. When I ran the above command line calling my old version of Robocopy, it synched the folders as well, rather than creating a duplicate folder. Even when I removed what appeared to be the extraneous switches using the old Robocopy.exe, it worked the way I expected. 

The only other difference is that I used a different backup drive (same manually created folder structure though). I can test with the original drive later tonight. But all that leaves to troubleshoot is the way Windows 7 read the original external drive (permissions??? NTFS???) I don't know. I'm stumped. But at least I've made some progress.

Bill