Windows 10: How to remove duplicate Folders from This PC in Windows 10

I hide the the folders like Music, Downloads, Documents etc in My PC by editing registry and changing value of ThisPCPolicy from Show to Hide into the following registry entries of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions\{f42ee2d3-909f-4907-8871-4c22fc0bf756}\PropertyBag as mentioned in the following guide.

How to remove the Folders from This PC in Windows 10
All these folders got hidden and then I wanted to get them back then as it was mentioned in this guide I changed them back to Show but all folders which were hidden start showing double. Now each folder has one duplicate with same name as shown in this screenshot. And now I have changed the value to Hide again but nothing changed or hide.

:)

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

Duplicate Public Folders

Hope this helps someone identify the problem.

• Q: What happens when you delete the duplicate folders?
• A: Nothing. They're successfully deleted.

• Q: Does it happen to all of your folders or only those with pictures?
  • A: Only the default Public Folders (Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos).
  • A: All of the Public Folders have customized folder icons.
  • A: The above image shows yellow, empty folder icons (duplicates).

• Q: Any steps you've tried to troubleshoot this issue?
  • Actually, this has been a problem since Windows 7.
  • What I noticed then is that certain Windows programs created the duplicates:
    • Windows Media Player (stopped using)
    • Internet Explorer (stopped using)
    • Plus others, which I can't recall.
  • Only certain programs for Windows 10, as well:
    • Microsoft Edge (don't use it often)
      
    • Groove Music (never intentionally use it)
      
    • Plus others, which I haven't tracked.
      • I only notice it when I go to Public Folders.
      • By then, I've long since forgotten what was accessed.
  • I've googled for answers but most of those only address
    moving the Public Folders to another Drive.

 

Quick Access not searching Pictures folder


Summary, that last suggestion didn't work.

• I moved the pictures to another folder temporarily.

• Then I tried to remove the Pictures folder with option one at Add or Remove Folders from This PC in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials. Even after rebooting, the Pictures folder remained.
• So I tried using option two. Same thing: reboot >> Pictures folder still there.

• Since there were no troubleshooting steps for this scenario, just for the heck of it, I ran through the restore steps. Copied some pictures into the Pictures folder, ran a Quick Access search and initial problem remains: Searching all of QA doesn't find any files in Pictures folder, running search on just the Pictures folder does. I want to run a global search and find matching files in any/all of the Documents, Music, Videos, and Pictures folders.

That article dates from 2015 and I'm guessing is out of date. I hope it didn't create potential future problems in my registry.

Bottom line: I'm still looking for a fix.