Windows 10: File Explorer has become a real mess

File Explorer, in the last few days, has become a real mess on my computers. (My Documents resides on a network drive, a D-Link DNS-323, which is mapped to the computer, and has been ever since the July release.)

1. Sometimes it takes File Explorer 4 or 5 minutes to allow access to My Documents.
a. I can expand My Documents in the left panel.
b. None of the sub-folders will expand in the left panel, the arrows to expand them are not present.
c. Clicking on one of the sub-folders does not expand it in the right panel.

i.e. nothing works beyond expanding My Documents in the left panel until W10 gets its act in gear and decides to let me.

2. I can click on the mapped network drive which contains My Documents.
a. My Documents will expand in the left panel.
b. All sub-folders will expand in the left panel.
c. Clicking on one of the sub-folders will expand it in the right panel.

i.e. at the mapped drive level, everything works fine. Conclusion: Do that. Problem: I shouldn't have to.

3. And then, there is frequently this.



a. How many inaccessible copies of My Documents do I need? (Note, there are three this time, but it varies. I have seen as many as 5)
b. The sub-folder which is actually expanded on the right does not appear in the list on the left. (It belongs between # Correspondence and # Finance, of course.)

4. And this:



Attachment 52135
My flash drive on drive F: shows up twice. Once as a device under Computer, once kind of in a world of its own at the same level as my network.

Have I done any of this, or has MS done it to me?

:)

 

WMDC has become a mess. Will not recognize or connect w/Treo 750 on Vista Ultimate 64 bit

Yes, I have tried to disable the advanced network functionality however this returns an error mess "Failed to disable RNDIS to use Serial" message.



And yes I have the built-in Windows Firewall enabled however the settings for that have not changed and recall that for 3 months this sync'ed fine with the current Firewall settings. And I can not turn off the Firewall without modying the Group Policy as
this workstation is networked to a Small Business Server 03. But no, I'm not trying to sync tot he server. I am only (trying to) syncing to the workstation. The SBS is primarily a device that takes care of the back ups as I'm not using Exchange as my mail
server (all the email accts are POP3 accts popping directly from Outlook 07 on the workstation)



Does that help?

 

WMDC has become a mess. Will not recognize or connect w/Treo 750 on Vista Ultimate 64 bit

Have you tried to disable advanced networking (start, settings, connections, USB to PC). There is a check box to "Enable advanced network fucntionality". If that doesn't work, are you using a firewall on your machine?

 

hello, not sure exactly how mapped drivers would look in file explorer ,but I would say for part of the issue ,start with unchecking some of the things that show up in the left pane ,see image of my basic explorer , go to view #1 and uncheck the 3 things in #2

 

This is actually by design. We all have it like that.

All removable drives show twice in the left panel of File Explorer. They look like they are "in a world of their own", but in reality that "world" is actually a tree rooted under Desktop node. By default that Desktop node is hidden and you don't see it. But if you right-click some empty area in the left pane and select Show all folders option, you will see it.

The idea is to make removable drives accessible immediately under Desktop node (without having you expand This PC node). But they also appear under This PC.

 

Yeah, the removable-drive behavior is absolute garbage. I despise that they show up twice. I hate it so much.

Oh, and there are two totally unnecessary libraries that can't be permanently deleted: Camera Roll and Saved Pictures. Totally worthless and confusing.

They've screwed up File Explorer, honestly. It needs to be cleaned up and simplified.

 

Hi,

Nonsense. (Sorry.....*Smile)

Whilst I have this kind of behavior on some machines, I don't have it on every machine.
For example: plugging in a USB drive whilst booted from a Win To Go drive on the machine having this kind of behavior itself shows only one drive letter in explorer.
Doing the same booted from an internal disk it would show up twice with the second icon slightly more to the left.
It does not do this when an external HD is connect to the USB ports though.

Of course the fun starts when you have multiple devices hooked up to several USB ports. What a mess indeed........

Can't comment on shares network drives as I currently operate on stand alones.

Cheers, *Wink

 

Thanks for the reply.

But..... Those navigation pane settings have been set like yours since day-1. The current ill-behavior started recently, perhaps with version 1511, perhaps with a later update. I kind of "lived with it" for a while before it really started bugging me.

 

Thanks. I guess the Department of Redundancy Department decided to do it that. I don't use that particular computer very often, since it is primarily my wife's unit. But I don't remember that being the case initially when I was doing all the setup and hammering my way through W10. It is possible I just did not notice it until the rest of File Explorer got under my skin.

 

Thanks. I'm not even sure it was this way on that machine until recently, but I may be mistaken. Lots of strange stuff seems to be happening from day-to-day with W10. It gets so I don't know if I screwed up, or if MS is messing with what few brain cells I still have that work.

 

OK, no takers on the time to connect, the three copies of My Documents, or the missing folder yet. No prize for being the first to answer, but ....... Have we all just decided stuff like that is to be taken for granted until W10 is a finished product.

I know Vista took a beating from guys like me when it first hit the market, but it eventually became a pretty decent OS. They just had to replace it with W7 shortly after that. I never did bite on W8, so I can't comment on it. But I noticed W8.1 followed pretty fast on its heels. Do you suppose W10.1 in the works? In effect, I guess v1511 was the first shot at that.

 

So far, the best feature is the message when deleting files. For large files (10 or 20 gB, for instance) I always wondered what was going on for a minute or two as they purged them. Now they at least keep you posted with a pop-up message right away and follow it with the progress bar.

They also seem to refresh the right pane when a change is made, which I always had to do manually in W7 for some reason. But changes which affect the left pane still require you to close File Explorer and reopen it.

You win some, you lose some, I guess. But currently I feel I have lost more than I won.

 

Hi,

Just an idea. Can you check the properties of those files and the location ? I think I suggested that already yesterday but still.
I had multiple copies of those files but only for a short while whilst changing their storage path to point to my D:\ partition.
Now, that aspect has returned to normal.

Also, here's a screenshot of Explorer with a USB thumb drive inserted. Note the two identical drive letters and it automatically expands the one to the far left.
Autoplay however is completely turned off.

Anyone else has this ?

Cheers, *Wink

 

Interesting in that if I ask for the properties of either of the two "bonus" copies, i.e. the ones I haven't expanded, the properties both go to the same pop-up (which I had shifted to the right to make sure since Properties always tries to overlay the same location). The one which is expanded does not overlay that copy. It is repeatable with the "bonus" copies always jumping to the right image, the open one always overlaying the left one. The properties are identical and correct for that directory in both lists.

And like your experience, the problem comes and goes. Kind of a luck-of-the-draw thing.

 

Hi,

Could you just copy the contents of your "Documents" folder to a temporary folder on say, your network drive and then take ownership of the "bonus" folders and try to delete them ?

Cheers, *Wink