[Tripredacus]

OK here's the deal. I now have a notebook that has Windows 7 Pro on it and 2 Users folder in C:. The thing is that there is actually the regular Users folder, and the other one is called Data. This is confirmed by viewing the contents of C with the command prompt. However, viewing the folder from Explorer shows it to be Users. Let me tell you how I got to this point.

This notebook was shut off during updates and the OS got smoked. Not even a reinstall over top would work, and I was only able to reinstall by formatting the drive. Prior to this format, I had used imagex to capture C:\Users as:

imagex /capture d:\users z:\backups\backup.wim "C Users Backup"

Then I reloaded the system and created a folder in C called Data. I then used imagex to restore the backup into this folder as:

imagex /apply z:\backups\backup.wim 1 d:\data

What ended up happening was that the Data folder had still existed in the OS, and was called Data in CMD. But Windows Explorer showed it to be Users. I can rename the folder using CMD and it shows an updated name. If I try to rename using Explorer, it also works (verified in CMD) but the name still says Users. I cannot write anything into this folder as I get a permissions error. This happens even if I use an elevated Notepad for example. I was able to take ownership of the folder, but not able to give the Everyone group Full Control permissions.

Obviously, Windows is protecting this "false" Users folder with the same things it uses to protect the "real" Users folder, but this is just boggling my mind. So right now, I made another folder called Backup and copying the files I need out the false Users folder into there. Then I will boot into WinPE and delete the Data folder. Then hopefully this will be solved.

Anyways, a real mystery going on!

[Tripredacus]

Here is a screenshot I took showing the folder alias problem:



I resolved this by reinstalling Windows. I created C:\Backup\Data. Then use Imagex to apply into the Data folder. Take ownership, remove read-only flag and set Full Control to the local account. It was a pain, but still no idea why it used a folder alias the first time.