When copying a folder tree to an empty(!) location using Windows Explorer it often complains about folders already existing in the target location and offers a merge. This is reproducible on all my machines: Using Windows Explorer select c:\windows copy to an empty directory Windows shows a dialog "Confirm Folder Replace", offering to merge Windows folder with different create date I posted about this problem a long time ago, but did not get an explanation. http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/f44f2402-809f-4a53-a009-df58463a0cac/#49661e88-1eed-43a0-9e74-dedcb07bfc0f

I was able to reproduce this issue. It takes a few moments of copying before it pops up, but not long. I have to say, though, I have never seen this particular type of error with any other folders. Solution (said with tongue firmly in cheek): Don't copy the Windows folder! Nothing good can come from it! ;) In all seriousness, with all the "magic" built into Explorer and the file system now to try to protect people from themselves (and to provide some kind of compatibility with past initiatives to organize things that weren't thought through completely) it's really no surprise that stuff like this happens. It's good that you're reporting it, because a reassessment of all that magic is an inevitable consequence. We can only hope they remove the magic and return Windows to having a good, solid, predictable file system. Are you seeing it with any other folders besides C:\Windows? -Noel

What happens if you copy it outside of Windows Explorer, like using xcopy from a Command Prompt? It can be copied, my backup software does it (Acronis TI 2010) and Macrium Reflect. Rich Why can't I be different and original like everybody else? - Vivian Stanshal

I only used the \windows folder because everybody can reproduce the problem with it. It happens with other folders too. Ex: Everytime I copy Windows Backup folders to archive backups. Copying seems to work fine, regardless of choosing to merge or not. Because of this and the lack of a copy properies dialog where one can set override options etc. I use RichCopy for bulk copies. But this is not a supported product. I know, there is RoboCopy too.

Hi, We can reproduce when copying the folder c:\Windows. We will report this bug to proper department. Thank you for your feedback.Arthur Xie - MSFT

I just tried to copy "My Pictures" to a portable drive that has a folder "My Pictures 04.04.10" and I got the merge dialog??? Surely this is a bug?

We have just experienced a similar problem for the first time and think we can at least partially explain it. We are copying the "My Pictures" folder from our c: drive to an external disc drive, where we then rename it with the date appended. But when we tried to copy it again a month later, we got the erroneous merge dialog box, just like everyone else. We tried renaming the old folder (with the date appended) to something completely different, but it didn't make any difference -- we still got the merge message that said our two different folders had the same name. Huh?! We think the problem is related to this: we saw in one of our Windows 7 books that "My Documents" is just a localized "display" name for the ACTUAL file system name for that directory, which is just "Documents". (The connection is made through some hidden Desktop.ini file that points to a system file named Shell32.dll ... don't go there!) Anyway, this is a "feature" allows us to DISPLAY the name of the "Documents" folder as anything we want, in any language we want, without actually changing the name of the "Documents" directory in the file system itself. You can verify this by bringing up an old "DOS" command prompt window and using the DIR command to view the actual directory names in your user profile: the actual file system directory name is still "Documents", no matter what you (or Microsoft) has renamed it to be displayed as (in our case, "My Documents"). To our sorrow, we discovered that this property is "inherited" when we copied the "My Documents" to an external drive for backup and then renamed it with a date suffix, ie, "My Documents 2011-03-05". As it turns out, we were only renaming the folder display name. If we again use a command prompt to look at the directory structure on the external drive, the actual file system directory name on the backup drive is still "Documents" (!!!!!). Now, when you try to do a copy/paste of one of these folders, Windows 7 appears to be slightly schizo. We think it looks at the actual file system directory names when doing the paste, so (in our case) it sees a sub-directory already named "Documents" in the target folder and decides it's time to put up the folder merger dialog. But when it generates the (erroneous) folder merger dialog window, is uses the local display names for those two folders (which are different). So you end up with a ridiculous looking message which, in effect, says "Your target already has a folder named "ABC" so do you want me to merge folder "DEF" into it?" But at the file system level, it thinks you're trying to copy a directory named "Documents" into a parent folder that already has a sub-directory with that same name. We can even "catch" Windows 7 erroneously using the actual file system directory name if we click-hold-drag (in order to move) our renamed "My Documents 2011-03-05" folder from one folder to another folder on the external drive. The move operation works fine, BUT after the move, the name of the "My Documents 2011-03-05" folder has been altered to display as, you guessed it, simply "Documents". Yikes!!! Since when does a simple click-hold-drag to move a folder also RENAME that folder? So far, we've only caught this happening on directories/folder-names that ship with the OS itself, such as "Documents"/"My Documents", "Pictures"/"My Pictures", etc. It did not happen with a "Windows Live Mail" directory that we are also periodically copying to our external drive, presumably because Windows Live Mail 2011 was installed separately from the OS. Well, we don't think we can fight this bug, so we're switching to a new strategy for our backups. We now create a new folder on the external drive with the backup date in it, ie "2011-03-05" and then copy the "My Documents", "My Pictures" , etc. etc. folders to that new "dated" backup folder. This avoids duplicate subdirectory names going into the same folder, and lets the OS call the copied folder name a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g it wants to! Plus we don't have to append the date to the copied backup folder names any more. As an added bonus, when we see that the "2011-03-05" backup folder is so old that we don't need to keep it anymore, we can just delete that folder and all of its subfolders and files, and that backup is history.

Interesting observation, and very likely right on target. It shows what comes of the operating system trying to do too much "magic" behind the scenes. Microsoft: Just pick a name and stay with it. Make a file a file and a folder a folder. In short, please make Windows an OPERATING SYSTEM, not an entertainment channel on Dumb TV. STOP REORGANIZING THINGS with every release! We users, in turn, will do all the really interesting stuff by actually USING and COMBINING that data, which we will be able to easily find without having to hunt around with a broken Search facility and without having to decode all the special file system magic first. Thanks. -Noel

I have the same problem, even when I copy to new folder named with date. But I copy from Projects folder which I created in Libraries (maybe this is what causes problem?). мм- MCTS