Most items that appear on the desk top are actually elements of two
different directories:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop
C:\Documents and Settings\???\Desktop
where the ??? is the ID of the user.
Normally, only users with administrator privileges can do anything
with the items in the All Users directory.
Also normally, the contents of both directories are shortcuts (also
called links) to the actual files in question (whether that file be a
program to execute or a directory to "explore").
There is no requirement that the name of a desktop item be unique
compared to names in the other directory. If you have a My Documents
element in one, you can also have an element with the same name in the
other. There is also no requirement that such duplicate elements
point to the same target.
The actual My Documents folder (not the icon that display on the
desktop) is usually located at
C:\Documents and Settings\???\My Documents
though XP provides a way to move it to another drive or partition.
If you logon as an administrator and open a command window (so you see
actual contents rather than Window's interpretation of the contents),
you can use the dir command to confirm that the My Documents elements
of the desktop folders are in fact links. If so, you can manually
delete any named My Documents. If either is a folder, you can copy
its contents to the real My Documents folder noted above and delete
them from this unwanted folder. Then you can delete the unwanted
folder itself.
Once you have straightened out the two desktop folders, you can use
the desktop properties window to select the option to properly display
the My Documents icon on the desktop
On Sun, 16 May 2010 08:48:41 -0600, Howard Brazee
wrote:
>My mother's desktop has as its first icon a folder that contains "My
>Documents". It seems recursive and can't be removed by normal means
>(I don't want "My Documents" touched). Can it be hid or otherwise
>fixed?
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