I got 2 C:\Windows folders...Why and what do I do?
 

After having reinstalled and recovered a few times in the past few days. I now have 2 windows folders on my C: drive. They seem equal in size with the same number of files and folders. Which should I delete and how? The only difference is that one is spelled 'Windows' and the other is spelled 'WINDOWS'. Yep, I've done my fair share of drugs, but not tonight and I'm not seeing double except when I'm looking in Windows Explorer!

If I were you I would check and find out why it is saying that is 2 seperate folders, Windows does not see folders differently if only the letters case are different. One thing you can do to find out witch one is witch, is set your folder options to warn you if your going into a protected / system directory and the one that comes up with the Warning is the correct windows version, but first off you HAVE to figure out why its saying there is 2 versions :) Another thing you can check is see if all of your HDD Space adds up, like maby windows just fucked up and is saying there is 2 folders when in actuality it is one, but is linked some fucked up way. Your HDD space may not be taken up by the second windows directory, even though it is saying it is on the properties, This is how a Multi version of Windows 2000+ CD is made, if you look at the properties of each folder on the CD it is a total of like 3gb, but all it is doing is linking each folder to a different area of the disk (At least that is the only explanation I can see.) ANyway good luck with that :P

I have seen that happen when a reinstall is done, but the drive is not completely blown away. The old windows install did not get deleted, and a new one was installed. I dont know which one is being used, however... Hopefully someone here will.

run chkdsk /F and let it do a reboot and scan, its likely a cross linked directory or other corruption, unless theres an extra character in the filename thats blank, like a space or an alt-254

Do you have a boot manager installed?
Do you have a mixture of XP/Win95/Win98/2K on the same PC?

This is perfectly routine, if you do.

It sounds like you have two versions of Windows installed. This is entirely possible (and actually quite common in these circumstances).

Check your boot.ini file.

It will likely look something like this:

Note the fact that there are two sections above, one referring to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows and one to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

If there is only one line, check to see if it's the Windows or WINDOWS. Which ever one is in your boot.ini file is the one that is being used by your PC. You can safely delete the other one. Of course, this is assuming you don't WANT two versions on your hard-drive (which is something some people do).

Mr Mephisto

there isn't two versions of windows in your case Mr M, just one, windows is not case sensitive so

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
and
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows

are the same directory on the same drive and partition

also your boot.ini is funky since it has a bad default.

del c:\windows would kill both.

if the partions were different, it'd be a completely different matter

ie
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
and
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows

Typo on my part. I meant to have the second one refer to partition(2).

Good catch!

Mr Mephisto

you got me thinking for a minute if it were possible to have a short name as 8.3 c:\windows and a long name as c:\windows, but i can't see anyway for that unless the FAT or such is corrupt.

since the original poster said both were on C: thats all i can think of, barring the invisible letter.

I really don't know what happened... I was trying to upgrade from win98 to win98/se. Windows was never the same, either some features stopped working, such as 'view as a web page' when viewing directories in windows explorer or just plain old system failures. My \windows directory was massive!! Over 1.5GB!!! So I did what I could. I saved all my precious documents (and porn) along with my device drivers and some zip application files on a sketchy secondary drive and re-formatted/re-installed win98/se. It took me nearly five hours, but my machine has never worked so well.

Thank you all for your efforts and advice!!!

Aha.... the sneaking "delete, format, re-install" trick, eh?

Don't let anyone know. Thousands of so called IT Engineers rely on that trade secret...

:)

Mr Mephisto