Hi, I'm running Windows 7 on my Dell XPS M1330 computer. I ran into something very strange today and am trying to figure out how to "un-do" it... I have a simple directory (which I have named "Dump") as a sub-directory of my normal user directory. I use this directory for temporary storage. Anything I place in there I know is ok to delete later. Here is the directory structure: C:\Users\<my user name>\Documents\Dump As you can see, there is nothing "remarkable" about where that directory is placed. Here is the strange part... Whatever I put into that directory shows up on my computer desk top! For example, if I put a simple text file into that directory called "My_Dog.txt", that file will magically show up on my desktop! If I delete the file from my desktop, it is also deleted from that "Dump" directory. Similarly, if I rename the file in one location, the same file is renamed in the other. Very strange! There is one other strange behavior... If I save any kind of a file directly to the Desktop, it does not show up there at all! For example, if I create a simple text file called "My_Cat.txt" and save it to my Win7 desktop, it simply seems to disappear. Only files saved to the "Dump" directory show up on the Win 7 desktop. Although, that My_Cat.txt WILL show up when I look at C:\Users\my user name\Desktop ... It just won't show up on the desktop itself. It is as if the Win7 OS has redefined what it thinks is my Desktop directory. It now looks in the "Dump" directory for files that appear on the actual Desktop, instead of looking in the desktop directory. Any idea what is going on here? How can I "unlink" the contents of that directory from my Win7 desktop? Many thanks... RJ

That is very bizarre. I assume your Dump folder is located on "Documents" or somewhere similar. Is the Dump dirctoory a shortcut to the desktop or the actual directory? Vote if answered or helpful, I am running for Office (joke)! IT/Developer, Windows/Linux/Mainframe See my site for detailed machine information

Hi Vegan Fanatic, Yes... It was very strange... I'll stress "was" here, as I got it figured out. I think somehow I managed to rename the real "Desktop" directory to "Dump"... then I dragged it into the trash. Win7 then apparently found another directory on my system also named "Dump" and treated it (functionally speaking) as the new desktop directory. In the mean time, Win7 also created a replacement directory in the normal place called "Desktop", but functionally still used that "Dump" directory to store files. I've been at the computer WAY too long today and made some goofy errors. Anyway, my solution was to go into the Recycle Bin and retrieve the original Desktop directory (still named "Dump" in the recycle bin) and put it back in the right place in the directory structure. I deleted out anything else that might have a name conflict, then changed the name of this retrieved directory back to "Desktop"... It has the proper system icon on it now... and seems to be functioning normally. Although I'm sure I was the root cause of all this misery, it is a little unsettling that Win 7 allowed me to get by with all this goofyness, without warning me something was amiss... Anyway... thanks for the reply. Now I have to see if I can mark this issue as closed. Cheers!