S
Stephen_Gray_Au
This is a problem with the system shortcuts for Downloads and Documents getting tangled up together. Corruption in the registry I presume.
The symptom is that I have two "Documents" folders, but one is supposed to be the "Downloads" folder. Both the links jump to the very same actual directory. The Downloads folder has somehow been renamed to "Documents" and points to the "c:/WIndows/Users/XXX/Documents" folder. While there are two shortduts, one has the documents icon and the other the downloads icon.
This has only recently happened as at Jan 2020. I have to suspect a Microsoft update, but cant be sure. Searching this Community, I found a very, very similar issue reported in 2017. The 2017 suggested fix doesnt work for me - and actually it didnt work then either, judging by the comments. However I did try it but when I renamed one folder, after restarting Explorer, it renamed both shortcuts.
The even stranger, I tried to manually add a "Downloads" folder to my user directory, but the system prevents it with the complaint that I cant because "there is already a folder called "Documents". So it is reading the text I typed "Downloads" and converted that to "Documents" and my guess is that this is evidence of it being a registry corruption that ties the two names together.
My own suggested fix;
1. Create a brand new user account
2. Copy all my files to that user.
3. only use the new user from now on
4. wait a few weeks before deleting the old user account unitl I am certain I copied accross everything.
5. Hope that another software update doesnt do again !
Does anyone have an other suggestion of how this can be fixed?
Continue reading...
The symptom is that I have two "Documents" folders, but one is supposed to be the "Downloads" folder. Both the links jump to the very same actual directory. The Downloads folder has somehow been renamed to "Documents" and points to the "c:/WIndows/Users/XXX/Documents" folder. While there are two shortduts, one has the documents icon and the other the downloads icon.
This has only recently happened as at Jan 2020. I have to suspect a Microsoft update, but cant be sure. Searching this Community, I found a very, very similar issue reported in 2017. The 2017 suggested fix doesnt work for me - and actually it didnt work then either, judging by the comments. However I did try it but when I renamed one folder, after restarting Explorer, it renamed both shortcuts.
The even stranger, I tried to manually add a "Downloads" folder to my user directory, but the system prevents it with the complaint that I cant because "there is already a folder called "Documents". So it is reading the text I typed "Downloads" and converted that to "Documents" and my guess is that this is evidence of it being a registry corruption that ties the two names together.
My own suggested fix;
1. Create a brand new user account
2. Copy all my files to that user.
3. only use the new user from now on
4. wait a few weeks before deleting the old user account unitl I am certain I copied accross everything.
5. Hope that another software update doesnt do again !
Does anyone have an other suggestion of how this can be fixed?
Continue reading...