Strangely Named Folders in C:\ Drive

[admiral_victory]

I notice that I haave folders in my C:\ drive of the form :-

"All User.WINDOWS " and "Default User.WINDOWS"

Is it normal to have a Folder with the name split with a period in
this way in XP?

B.N.

 

[bumtracks]

fwiw
xp home sp2 on my lap doesn't have those with dot.windows but does have
them with out the `extension

 

[Johan]

I noticed the same folders on a PC here at home after i installed winxp
"over the original installation " ... my educated guess is that during the
second install winxp sees the folder "default user" ( which it wants to
create and is allready there ) .. it then renames the old folder to '
default user.WINDOWS ' ...

maybe someone can confirm this... but this must be the reason... so i
assume you, or previous owner, reinstalled winxp ' leaving original file
system ' intact for reasons not to loose data

greets Johan

 

[Steve Shattuck]

I notice that I haave folders in my C:\ drive of the form :-

"All User.WINDOWS " and "Default User.WINDOWS"

Is it normal to have a Folder with the name split with a period in
this way in XP?

It is not normal, but common in systems where a repair install was done
incorrectly, causing a duplicate installation of the same partition.
Windows installer protects itself from duplicate folder names by adding a
..suffix to the common folder names. Usually it uses the computer name
rather than the word WINDOWS. Deleting the .windows installation takes
great care. Scan this newsgroup or Google for "delete duplicate windows"
for instructions on removing this problem. I actually have one system where
the user did it so long before noticing it that I chose NOT to remove the
duplicate, and have him just live with the lost HD space.