9 ms·

Looks like someone didn't do their job correctly. Carrying on a destructive action (DELETE) without first checking whether that folder contains any files (excep

by jve 8y ago

Looks like someone didn't do their job correctly. Carrying on a destructive action (DELETE) without first checking whether that folder contains any files (except maybe desktop.ini)...

kgwxd 8y ago
Just because a folder is currently empty doesnt mean its not used and assumed to exist by some program. Delete shouldnt have been called, period.
- stinky613 8y ago
  I won't try to defend their execution, but I think they're trying to solve a legitimate issue. It's really confusing to an end-user if they see two Documents folders. And I'm certain that I've personally encountered instances where both Documents folders had the Documents special folder icon (though I'm not sure if I've seen this on Win10, specifically)
  - jplayer01 8y ago
    Maybe just fix that bug instead of deleting user data? Just a thought.
    - gruez 8y ago
      It's not even a bug
      - jplayer01 8y ago
        You don't think it's a bug when two folders get the same special icon that one usually associates with one specific location? That's a huge UI bug.
        gruez 8y ago
        >two folders get the same special icon Nope, I just tested, only 1 folder gets the special icon.
        jplayer01 8y ago
        I've seen it a lot over the years. Literally two folders side-by-side with the same name and same icon and questionably the same path but are two different folders. I even had it on a customer's PC just last week. Don't know what else to say.
        colemickens 8y ago
        I'll chime in here with +1. It's why I refuse to mess with KFR anymore. Wound up in a situation with multiple directories with the same name appearing, with different file contents, with different behavior depending on how you accessed it. Kept coming back despite not being how I'd configured KFR. It was a fucking nightmare. Nothing like staring at what is supposed to be a filesystem view and seeing things that make no sense. You're not alone. It's been a bit reassuring that others run into these things. I figured maybe I was just "holding it wrong".
  - tcfunk 8y ago
    I ended up in this situation upgrading from 7 to 8 to 10 (not sure which transition was the culprit).
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    I have two Documents folders. It's fucking confusing. But I'd think it shouldn't have been possible for them to exist in the first place. Windows Explorer is a mess.
    - Bartweiss 8y ago
      I've run into this on a bunch of systems, and it absolutely is a mess. Particularly since Explorer gives all kinds of special status and UI elements to 'Documents' folders - if they just had the same name in different places I'd care way less. But the solution to "we screwed up years ago" is definitely not "nuke one instance with no warning and don't even glance at what's there".
      - colemickens 8y ago
        It's basically the only reason I didn't lose a bunch of data from this bug as an Insider - the "Libraries" and special "My Documents" folders are so damn messy and have caused me data loss at other times, that I stopped using it and manage things myself. Another lovely one, for ages (probably still) OneDrive would purge it's local copy whenever you turned it off or uninstalled it. That was probably one of the most frustrating things that Windows has ever done to me. Edit: Lord, can we please talk about "3D Objects" too? Who the hell got promoted for shoving that down everyone's throat in half a dozen places? Every week I get an update I have to run a regedit script to remove all the bullshit they've shoved into Explorer for absolutely no reason.
        Bartweiss 8y ago
        `Libraries` and `My Documents` an absolute mess, agreed. I've given up and just work from a personal folder that serves the exact same role but doesn't have any special Windows status, which is a pretty serious indictment of those "helpful" features. A sincere question: why are you an Insider? After the Windows 8.1 issues I'd be really gunshy about getting early anything for Windows. Are there upsides to that, or is it pretty much just a public service in the same sense as running nightly Firefox builds?
  - manigandham 8y ago
    So move/merge the locations since that is clearly the intention if the user has a redirection setup. A simple message confirming that "there are 2 Documents folders and would you like to move them to a single location" would be sufficient. This is just a project management failure that somehow got through, but the fact that it did seems to show major QA issues.
    - cesarb 8y ago
      Merging the locations can easily get complicated. What if the same file exists in both folders? What if it exists in both folders, but with different contents? What if not only it has different contents, but also the same last modification time?
      - manigandham 8y ago
        Why is it complicated? It's no different than moving any other folder to a new location which already has one with the same name, something that has been handled for decades now. It should be the same exact action, just triggered by a message saying "Documents folder detected in 2 locations, click OK to copy".
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
makecheck 8y ago
There is no “check first” in an ever-changing file system environment that has no atomic operation for something this large. Any “check” is a false sense of security, convincing you that you’re about to do the right thing; meanwhile, any background process could create important stuff in the directory tree you just “checked” and you’d destroy it anyway. If you could lock down the whole directory tree and then check, it would be moderately safer but you are still assuming the tree contains only what you expect. It’s far wiser to have a list from the start or a file search that you can audit before individually processing files on your list.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  Sounds like making the perfect the enemy of the good. Why bother to do any checks of anything when a random flip-flop could go metastable forever and brick your system?

by jve 8y ago

Looks like someone didn't do their job correctly. Carrying on a destructive action (DELETE) without first checking whether that folder contains any files (except maybe desktop.ini)...

kgwxd 8y ago

Just because a folder is currently empty doesnt mean its not used and assumed to exist by some program. Delete shouldnt have been called, period.

stinky613 8y ago
I won't try to defend their execution, but I think they're trying to solve a legitimate issue. It's really confusing to an end-user if they see two Documents folders. And I'm certain that I've personally encountered instances where both Documents folders had the Documents special folder icon (though I'm not sure if I've seen this on Win10, specifically)
- jplayer01 8y ago
  Maybe just fix that bug instead of deleting user data? Just a thought.
  - gruez 8y ago
    It's not even a bug
    - jplayer01 8y ago
      You don't think it's a bug when two folders get the same special icon that one usually associates with one specific location? That's a huge UI bug.
      - gruez 8y ago
        >two folders get the same special icon Nope, I just tested, only 1 folder gets the special icon.
        jplayer01 8y ago
        I've seen it a lot over the years. Literally two folders side-by-side with the same name and same icon and questionably the same path but are two different folders. I even had it on a customer's PC just last week. Don't know what else to say.
        colemickens 8y ago
        I'll chime in here with +1. It's why I refuse to mess with KFR anymore. Wound up in a situation with multiple directories with the same name appearing, with different file contents, with different behavior depending on how you accessed it. Kept coming back despite not being how I'd configured KFR. It was a fucking nightmare. Nothing like staring at what is supposed to be a filesystem view and seeing things that make no sense. You're not alone. It's been a bit reassuring that others run into these things. I figured maybe I was just "holding it wrong".
- tcfunk 8y ago
  I ended up in this situation upgrading from 7 to 8 to 10 (not sure which transition was the culprit).
- solarkraft 8y ago
  I have two Documents folders. It's fucking confusing. But I'd think it shouldn't have been possible for them to exist in the first place. Windows Explorer is a mess.
  - Bartweiss 8y ago
    I've run into this on a bunch of systems, and it absolutely is a mess. Particularly since Explorer gives all kinds of special status and UI elements to 'Documents' folders - if they just had the same name in different places I'd care way less. But the solution to "we screwed up years ago" is definitely not "nuke one instance with no warning and don't even glance at what's there".
    - colemickens 8y ago
      It's basically the only reason I didn't lose a bunch of data from this bug as an Insider - the "Libraries" and special "My Documents" folders are so damn messy and have caused me data loss at other times, that I stopped using it and manage things myself. Another lovely one, for ages (probably still) OneDrive would purge it's local copy whenever you turned it off or uninstalled it. That was probably one of the most frustrating things that Windows has ever done to me. Edit: Lord, can we please talk about "3D Objects" too? Who the hell got promoted for shoving that down everyone's throat in half a dozen places? Every week I get an update I have to run a regedit script to remove all the bullshit they've shoved into Explorer for absolutely no reason.
      - Bartweiss 8y ago
        `Libraries` and `My Documents` an absolute mess, agreed. I've given up and just work from a personal folder that serves the exact same role but doesn't have any special Windows status, which is a pretty serious indictment of those "helpful" features. A sincere question: why are you an Insider? After the Windows 8.1 issues I'd be really gunshy about getting early anything for Windows. Are there upsides to that, or is it pretty much just a public service in the same sense as running nightly Firefox builds?
- manigandham 8y ago
  So move/merge the locations since that is clearly the intention if the user has a redirection setup. A simple message confirming that "there are 2 Documents folders and would you like to move them to a single location" would be sufficient. This is just a project management failure that somehow got through, but the fact that it did seems to show major QA issues.
  - cesarb 8y ago
    Merging the locations can easily get complicated. What if the same file exists in both folders? What if it exists in both folders, but with different contents? What if not only it has different contents, but also the same last modification time?
    - manigandham 8y ago
      Why is it complicated? It's no different than moving any other folder to a new location which already has one with the same name, something that has been handled for decades now. It should be the same exact action, just triggered by a message saying "Documents folder detected in 2 locations, click OK to copy".
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]

makecheck 8y ago

There is no “check first” in an ever-changing file system environment that has no atomic operation for something this large. Any “check” is a false sense of security, convincing you that you’re about to do the right thing; meanwhile, any background process could create important stuff in the directory tree you just “checked” and you’d destroy it anyway. If you could lock down the whole directory tree and then check, it would be moderately safer but you are still assuming the tree contains only what you expect. It’s far wiser to have a list from the start or a file search that you can audit before individually processing files on your list.

perl4ever 8y ago
Sounds like making the perfect the enemy of the good. Why bother to do any checks of anything when a random flip-flop could go metastable forever and brick your system?