Windows 7 forum: All desktop shortcuts appear twice and it wont stop doing this!

I am not the expert on Windows 7 -- but I figure a new HP which came preloaded with it is likely not to have had the problem out of the box. Thus, somebody did something wrong: what? We can absolve him/her of the sin, but it may recur if the person is around.
Perhaps a program or a browser was installed? (not to be rude, but it helps to have listed everything that was installed in your question)

You don't make it clear, but should we assume that you delete the excess icons, and new duplicates are created when you restart????
What happens if you pull all the duplicates into a new folder and move it someplace no one will ever look, lol?

Whilst waiting for real expert help, I probably would have driven back to the store with the cpu (or called the salesperson at HP, if a direct purchase), and asked for help, "playing the church card:" if I had to.

Hi Jeff,
How frustrating.
I don't know what level of skill you have with Windows 7 so excuse me if you already tried this.
Windows XP places all profiles under the Documents and settings folder usually in the root drive i.e. c:\
Windows 7 (MS!)decided to change that. You will still find docs and settings but your wasting your time in there, the real action happens in Users.
So C:\user\public\desktop have a look in there and see if your icons live there. If you are not sure create a folder in that location called say Fred and place all the icons in it.
Next go back to your desktop and see if anything changed. Yep it is that instant.
If you find you have a folder called Fred icons as normal then you have found root cause.

If you are creating a user from scratch then what ever was in the default user build will be also passed to that users new %username% profile. That's how the basic icons get on the desktop.
That's another good reason to install All software on the computer BEFORE you add extra users.

So the answer recapped is,
All user profiles live in C:\Users
All icons that are displayed on the desktop live in two places
1. C:\users\Public\desktop
and
2. C:\users\%username%\desktop

Hope that sorts out your problem.
All the best.

Good morning,
i had same problem with double icons appearing on desktop, i tried the new user with admin rights and tried to delete the second icons, but system asked me for admin rights, and then after me pressing continue, giving access to the system the icons were deleted, but both of them and then when i came back as admin user , my old basic account, had still the same problem. Any new suggestions pls?

If only one of each shortcut works, and the others don't open, can't be moved or deleted, you may have a full size screenshot of a desktop image set as your background. Try changing your desktop background image and see if it solves the problem.

Your computer has had a what I call a hiccup at one time. Shut down wrong or electric popped off. What ever. But all you have to do is just deleted the empty folders that are duplicates. And that should solve your problem. It happened to mine when the lights when off and then right back on. Just right click on the empty folders and the select delete. They will be gone.
Deb

Jeff -

I would have to guess (given the info given), that the problem has to do with the current user and some potential corruption.

The easy fix for this would be to create another user. Log in as the other user and then see if it's still doing it. If not, copy your documents, puctures and such from C:\users\olduser\ to c:\users\newuser (substituting the old username with the new one as appropriate.)

I am a licensed PC Technician. I have been doing this sort of thing for years. Also, what the others are saying is wrong. It is not a hicup, there is no file corruption in your user profile that is causing all of this, do not start deleting folders like one person suggested. As I stated, you have two Desktops working as one desktop. One is the All Users Desktop and the other is the Desktop that is associated with your user account on your computer. When some programs install, they will install icons on both desktops. Here is why there is an all users desktop. Let's say you have more then one user on your pc, you would log in as the other user, what is on the all users desktop would also appear on the desktop of the user that you just logged in as. If you do not believe me, open up a window to your current desktop. Next, open up another window and go to C:\Users\Public\Public Desktop\. Look at the icons and compare them. You will see that some of them may be different and others may be the same (thats assuming that you did not delete anything off of one of them already). If you did, take one of the icons in your desktop and copy (not move) it into to the Public one and then look at your desktop, you will see two icons with the same exact name on your desktop again.

This message is for nikncon (who posted a question not related to the thread).

First of all, make sure you change your password! Make it a strong password with at least 8 characters and a combination of letters, numbers and special characters. The most important thing here is you must not use the same password that you use for other websites, chat programs etc. Using the same password everywhere is a huge no-no; if someone from one of those sites sells your information to another company, they can essentially track all the websites you've been to, what log-in's you have and try using the same password everywhere.

If you cannot change your password because it has been changed, click on the "Forgot my password" link to either recover your password, reset it, or obtain a new one. (It depends on what email site you are using).

Second of all, run a virus scan on your computer that can detect and remove any malicious software like trojans, keyloggers, viruses etc. that can steal your personal information allowing someone else to gain access to it. I recommend http://www.malwarebytes.org/ (download free version).

Once that is done, change the answer to your security questions.

That should solve your problem for now. You must be careful about what sites you sign into using your email address and password. There are a lot of fake "sign into msn" sites that will steal your email and password when you sign into them. Another big one is "Who has blocked me" which also ask you for your username and password.

Hope this helps.

I would agree with the previous poster that someone is spoofing your e-mail as that is usually the case. However, I don't think so this time, because you said that your friends are getting these e-mails which mean that someone is accessing your contact/address book associated with this email address in order to send spam to them.

Either your PC is infected or someone has accessed your e-mail account.

To decide which one: If you are using a web based e-mail and have your contacts stored on the Web server it is the latter. If you do not have your conatcts stored on the web server OR your using a pop mail client your PC is infected.

You need to take action soon either way.

My problem is a bit different than the thread but falls under the same category, doubled icons on Desktop. My problem is Control Panel doubling up. I delete what appears to be the second icon but it comes right back on log out/log in. Here is where it starts to enter the Twilight Zone - this exact same thing happens on my HP laptop, My primary PC (obviously), My assistants PC; all running W7 x64. When I use Windows Explorer to look in users/"my name"/Desktop there are no icons for Control Panel when viewing the files list. I've gone in to Reg Edit to see if that was messing it up; nope. My other associate has W7 pro i86 installed and only has 1 occurrence of Control Panel on the desktop. I might add that the 3 machines with the doubled icons each used a different install disc and were installed with the overwrite capacity, which builds Windows.old, so I started with a cleaner install than standard upgrade. And yet, I have 3 PCs built at different times with 3 different licenses for W7.

Two things here. If your motherboard already has an IDE port on it, I would use that. You can hook up two devices per IDE Port (Master/Slave). If you do not have one of these ports, feel free to use the kit that you mentioned. However, just remember that even if you do use the kit, that your hard disk speed at the rate of how fast the computer operates on, will run at IDE speeds, not at SATA speeds. I recommend that you get a SATA drive instead unless what I mentioned works for you. Remember that your fastest speed will be as slow as your slowest speed that runs in the system.

You didn't mention it clearly the problem
It may be because of Virus if the short cut duplicate itself or if you are the one who make the shortcut, if it is virus try to have antivirus here AVAST 5.0 for win7 and udate it then scan the whole comp. If you are the one who make it then just delete it

It could be that all the shortcuts are replicated in the public filder the one which's shared by all users

this problem happen with my pc my brother who is a computer programmer advice me to use a license registry booster or similar device & install a higher antivirus, anti spy, & anti malware & it fix the problem. im just a begginer when it come's with pc but i hope this might help you

This current discussion is on duplicate desktop icon in Windows 7.

Please go here and click the "Create a new thread" to start a new topic:
http://forums.cnet.com/windows-7-forum/

Thank you!
-Lee