How Do I Turn Off Automatic Duplication?

[Guest]

I hope someone can help me with this. I have two HP notebooks, one has XP
Home and the other XP Entertainment.

Both of them make "Copy Of" files of everything I do be it pictures, videos,
documents, etc. Needless to say, it slows the puter down to a snail's pace.
One of the puters is only a few months old and already so jammed with these
"Copy Of" folders and files that I wanna smash it.

I deleted them with BCWipe this morning off both puters but they are only
going to start doing it again. Please tell me how to turn this "creature
feature" (LOL!) off.

I don't need every little thing in a second copy. It gets very confusing
too as I'll often save by accident in the copy file and then it's not in the
main file.

HELP!!!! Thanks, in advance!

TK

--

 

[DL]

Some Office apps have an option to store a backup/copy of the current file,
but thats probably not what you are seeing
Has HP installed some 'copy' utility on your PC that is running in the
background?

 

[thecreator]

Hi TK,

Are you running a Backup program, trying to have access to My Documents
folder on each computer, so you don't need to visit the other computer? I
believe that is what is happening. What Backup type program are you running?

For example, you backup My Documents from one computer to the next
computer and instead of overwriting the existing folder, it makes a Copy of
folder.

Also run a Spybot Search and Destroy and anything else that protects you
and see what the results are.

 

[Guest]

I don't think there's anything running in the background that would do this.
It's on both puters. I never noticed it before I got the new puter and only
did then as the tree structure is quite different in it even though both are
H.P. XPs.

For example... I put pictures in a directory called "Karens Stuff" under a
subfolder called Karens Pictures, and also have Karens Documents, Karens
Downloads, etc.

But Windows makes it's own directory or folder called Documents and
Setting... under that it made a "Karen" directory and then a "Document"
directory under whch there are "My Pictures", My Documents, etc.

It dupes everything I put into the Karens Stuff into the other folder and
sometimes I accidentally put things in the Doc & Settings and don't mean to.
I cannot delete the doc/setting folder as it says it's a system file.

HELP

 

[Guest]

Nope... no backup program ever installed. Also, there are no files with .bak
on them (cut my teeth on PC-Dos back in the 80's).

The only program that does an archive (which I DON'T want, BTW) is HP
PhotoSmart Premier. That wouldn't have anything to do with the downloads,
docs., etc.

They just dupe themselves automatically... COMPLETE DUPLICATIONS... not
restorable back ups. You can imaging how much space they take up.

BTW... I do run SpyBot and CA anti virus constantly and do weekly updates
and scans on each.

Also.... I did a scan for duplicate files and found 17,200 of them!
SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DUPLICATES!!!

It took 21 hours to run the search and I don't even want to THINK about how
long it will take to annihilate them all.

I do have a portable hard drive and a USB to USB linking cable and am within
INCHES of annihilating everything that's been duped on ONE puter and then
deleting "Karen's Stuff" on the other and then loading the Documents and
Setting to a NEW directory named Karen's Stuff on the old and than reversing
and finally synchronizing.

BUT... that will only eliminate what's ALREADY there! GRRRRRRRR


Karen

 

[Arecibo]

Nope... no backup program ever installed. Also, there are no files with
.bak on them (cut my teeth on PC-Dos back in the 80's).

The only program that does an archive (which I DON'T want, BTW) is HP
PhotoSmart Premier. That wouldn't have anything to do with the downloads,
docs., etc.

They just dupe themselves automatically... COMPLETE DUPLICATIONS... not
restorable back ups. You can imaging how much space they take up.

[...]

I'm not sure that duplicates exist, you may just have two routes by which
you
can see them.

Create and save a word document in one of Karen's folders.
Close all programs.
Click Start, and then click Search.
Click All files and folders.
Type part or all of the name of the file.

Check to see if two copies of the file turn up.

 

[DL]

A backup app doesnt neccessarily store the backup as a bac file, some backup
apps create a file called 'copy of ***'

Your HP was probably supplied with all sorts of HP utilities preinstalled
So you realy need to examin the HP documentation & find out what they have
installed on your PC

 

[DL]

Win by default creates a user name folder in Docs & settings containing My
Documents, with subfolders My Pictures etc

By default win & most apps automatically save docs to one of these folders,
and open these folders when you search for a doc
By creating your own 'Karens' stuff/folders you are causing unneccessary
duplication & confusion.
I would suggest you moved items from the folders you created back into the
win My Documents default folders, and then delete your created folders.

 

[Guest]

That "overbloat" of software is, indeed, an issue. I had to purchase the HP
Entertainment Edition which has programs I've never even heard of and am
fairly confident I'd never use.

I'm suspecting that some of the issues I'm having is coming from severely
overbloated software.

I had to buy the Entertainment version as it was the very last HP XP I could
find within a 15 mile radius and it was a floor model. It's perfect though
and I'm glad I found it in the nick of time! Woulda' been stuck with Vista
and NONE of my software OR peripherals are compatible with it.

I'm not complaining.... I practically stole this puter and it's got that
huge screen and all kinds of nice things on it. It's just way too
overbloated.

I cut my teeth on PC-DOS in the 80's and I just HATE not being able to see
exactly what I'm doing!

Someone needs to create a program that will automatically delete dupes, at
your request, as the puter makes them.

I guess maybe I should call HP.... who, of course will tell me to call
Microsoft, who of course will.... OH NEVER MIND!!! You get the idea!

I'll have to "unhide" all programs and files and find out what happened.
It's doing it on the other HP now and I never noticed it before so that at
least narrows down which program this feature is attached to.

Thanks for all advice! Thank you EVERYONE!!!

Karen

 

[thecreator]

Hi Karen,

How many partitions are available on your Hard Drive? What files or
folders are being duplicated? Where are the files and folders being
duplicated?

Major Question: How often do you manually clean out your \Temp Folders?
The Temps are located in your User ID in \Local Settings\Temp and
\Windows\Temp.

Delete all files and sub-folders not in use. Then run Disk Cleanup.
After you run Disk Cleanup, schedule a Chkdsk /f and reboot to run.

Also see if there are any program processes that are indexing and stop
them. Try to eliminate background processes, where ever possible that isn't
needed. Change the Startup type to Manual from Automatic.

 

[Guest]

--

^*v*^<

Hi Karen,

How many partitions are available on your Hard Drive? What files or
folders are being duplicated? Where are the files and folders being
duplicated?

Major Question: How often do you manually clean out your \Temp Folders?
The Temps are located in your User ID in \Local Settings\Temp and
\Windows\Temp.

Delete all files and sub-folders not in use. Then run Disk Cleanup.
After you run Disk Cleanup, schedule a Chkdsk /f and reboot to run.

Also see if there are any program processes that are indexing and stop
them. Try to eliminate background processes, where ever possible that isn't
needed. Change the Startup type to Manual from Automatic.


--
thecreator






How many partitions are available on your Hard Drive? What files or

folders are being duplicated? Where are the files and folders being
duplicated?

Major Question: How often do you manually clean out your \Temp Folders?
The Temps are located in your User ID in \Local Settings\Temp and
\Windows\Temp.

~~~~ About every other day. I run Disk Clean Up and it's supposed to do it
automatically. I've found, however, it isn't exactly what I'd call efficient
as I then run search *.tmp and there's usually quite a few there still. I
delete all those.

Delete all files and sub-folders not in use. Then run Disk Cleanup.
After you run Disk Cleanup, schedule a Chkdsk /f and reboot to run.

~~~~ I'd be glad to try this but don't know how to execute the chkdsk/f
command as I can't get to the DOS prompt with either puter. Also, won't an
"f" command format?

Also see if there are any program processes that are indexing and stop
them. Try to eliminate background processes, where ever possible that isn't
needed. Change the Startup type to Manual from Automatic.

~~~~ I'm not sure I follow you here. Wouldn't the start up process in
automatic actually BE the cause of problems? In other words, in manual you
have to execute the program. In automatic it's always in the background.

Also.... Alt/Ctl/Del doesn't tell you everything that's running... Actually,
it seems like most, if not all Microsoft tools are deficient in their
performance.

Please write back about the chkdisk/f command. I'll try that first.

Karen