Duplicated AppData and ProgramData folders

Forums › Microsoft Windows › Duplicated AppData and ProgramData folders

Oncop53

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#305797 4-Jun-2023 15:07

Hi,

For quite a while now after changing a Win10 install to a new drive I have duplicates of ProgramData and AppData on the old drive. These seem to remain in sync with the proper locations (C:) but I can't remove these because then anything is also deleted from the C:

These are the locations:

C:\ProgramData
E:\ProgramData-old\Application Data\

And

C:\Users\myname\AppData\Roaming
E:\Users-old\myname\Application Data

How can I unlink this synchronization so I can safely delete the old folders. I want to sort this before the update to Win11.

Thanks

sqishy

470 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3084786 4-Jun-2023 16:19

Never seen this before, usually only see windows.old etc.

Do you have much stuff on W10? As it may be best to do a clean install and then re-install all your apps.

Oncop53

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3084794 4-Jun-2023 16:46

Thanks, I think you are right. This install probably dates back to some early day of Win7 that has been continuously upgraded.

Time to back up to the NAS and nuke it waith a clean install!

richms

28215 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#3084797 4-Jun-2023 17:06

Have you made a junction between the 2 of them? I have seen that when using some tool to relocate the docs folder off the OS drive to somewhere else.

Richard rich.ms

Oncop53

273 posts

Ultimate Geek

#3084804 4-Jun-2023 17:30

hmm yes that seems to be the case somehow:

PS C:\junction> ./junction -s E:\

Junction v1.07 - Creates and lists directory links
Copyright (C) 2005-2016 Mark Russinovich
Sysinternals - www.sysinternals.com

Failed to open \\?\E:\\System Volume Information: Access is denied.

\\?\E:\\ProgramData-old\Application Data: JUNCTION
Print Name : C:\ProgramData
Substitute Name: C:\ProgramData

\\?\E:\\ProgramData-old\Application Data\Application Data: JUNCTION
Print Name : C:\ProgramData
Substitute Name: C:\ProgramData

\\?\E:\\ProgramData-old\Application Data\Desktop: JUNCTION
Print Name : C:\Users\Public\Desktop
Substitute Name: C:\Users\Public\Desktop

... and so on for all of the recursive folders