[SOLVED] Windows keeps creating duplicate My Music folders...

[MrMcSwifty]

So I've been having a very bizarre issue in Win7 Home Premium lately. This might be confusing, so bear with me...

It started a few weeks ago when I copied the default "My Music" folder from C:/Users/username and placed a duplicate copy in C:/Users/username/My Documents.

My reason for doing this was because a particular game (Beat Hazard) only recognizes saved high-scores with their associated songs if the files between two installs retain the same folder structure.

Long story short, it didn't work anyways, so I deleted the new folder I copied to C:/Users/username/My Documents. For some reason, this also somehow also deleted the original "My Music" folder in C:/Users/username/, along with all my music files!

So I recreated the "My Music" folder and restored my files, but now Windows keeps regenerating new copies of these folders at random, both in the original C:/Users/username/ location, and the My Documents subfolder!

If I delete any of these automatically created files, it also deletes the other in the host/sub-folders.

If I copy all my music files to one of the folders that Windows keeps creating and use that one instead of my own, it still randomly creates more duplicates, only it will now also duplicate copies of all the music files contained inside as well!

And still, deleting one deletes the other, along with the files contained in both folders!

TL;DR... Windows keeps placing duplicate copies of the default "My Music" folder all over the place and I can't get it to stop, and deleting any one also deletes the others along with the any files contained within!

How can I make it stop???

[_I_]

looks like your my music folder got borked

try this
start -> run/search -> regedit
browse to
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
edit the key for 'my music'
and chnage it to %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Music

[MrMcSwifty]

Ok, so I tried that, and it didn't work. Strangely, after trying what you suggested, it not only creates duplicate empty Music folders, but also shortcut icons pointing to those folders and give me an Access Denied error when I click on them.

HOWEVER... you definitely pointed me in the right direction.

It turns out if I simply change that reg key from %USERPROFILE%\Documents\My Music, to %USERPROFILE%\My Music, it seems to solve the problem. Haven't seen any duplicate folders or shortcut icons since.

I have no idea why that works, or how it got so messed up to begin with, but either way... thanks for taking the time to reply and getting me pointed in the right direction!

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Go to \Users\YourUserName\My Music and right click that Music folder. Check that the Location tab has the correct location.

[_I_]

the files are not duplicated, they are just displayed in 2 locations

[MrMcSwifty]

Bad-Motha の投稿を引用：

Go to \Users\YourUserName\My Music and right click that Music folder. Check that the Location tab has the correct location.

Actually, that was one of the first things I did. The path in the Locations tab was C:\Users\username\Documents\My Music, and if I changed it to omit the Documents part it would tell me that folder doesn't exist and prompt me to create it, even though that was the folder I was already editing.

If I did allow it to create a new folder that way and used that one, it would still place another duplicate in the sub-folder as well... and still, if I deleted that one it would take the original with it as well. And on and on...

Sensual❅ の投稿を引用：

It's a worm virus.
It doesn't harm you in any way, it's just really annoying. If it starts duplicating files you should format your pc because it will dupe tons of files and fill up your whole storage.

Thanks for the suggestion but I don't think that's the case, for several reasons. For one, it only does this to that one folder, which just so happens to be the very one I myself tampered with a few weeks ago. Also (and I only recently noticed this), that it tends to happen in specific circumstances, like if I use WMP to play one of the music files in that folder. So it actually isn't as random as I had thought. And lastly, changing the registry entry to point to the correct folder seems to have solved the issue.

All this leads me to believe I mixed up something myself when I messed around with that folder a few weeks ago. I think what probably happened is a must have deleted the original default folder, and now Windows doesn't recognize it any more and keeps trying to recreate it even though it already exists. Not sure why it recreates them in two different locations, but whatever... it seems to be working now so I'm not gonna worry too much about it.

Thanks again for the help everyone.