asked on

Can I merge/delete 2 different Windows 10 User folders with the same name but different upper/lower case?

Due to an upgrade or Windows "refreshing", I somehow ended up creating 2 different Windows 10 user folders:

C:\user\E
C:\user\e

The contents are identical, although each folder seems to preserve it's own settings (such as view settings: Details vs. Icon). When I make changes in folder, it is reflected in the other folder. It's almost like one folder is a shadow of the other. Can I safely delete one? Or can I merge them? Or just ignore?

I found this from Wikipedia

The older Microsoft Windows filesystems VFAT and FAT32 are not case-sensitive, but are case-preserving. The earlier FAT12 filesystem was case-insensitive and not case-preserving, so that a file whose name is entered as readme.txt or ReadMe.txt is saved as README.TXT.[6] Later Windows file systems such as NTFS are internally case-sensitive, and a readme.txt and a Readme.txt can coexist in the same directory. However, for practical purposes filenames behave as case-insensitive as far as users and most software are concerned.[7]

65td

from a command window, if run whoami /all in each profile is user sid different?

John

That does not happen to me. Also look in Advance System Settings (Control Pane). You can see there if there are two profiles or one. Probably two.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

McKnife

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

SOLUTION

Joe Winograd

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

eeyo

ASKER

>>whoami /all
I can only log into the uppercase account. Technically, the lowercase account doesn't exist ...

eeyo

ASKER

>>Also look in Advance System Settings (Control Pane). You can see there if there are two profiles or one.
Only one account

eeyo

ASKER

dir c:\users

01/28/2018 09:25 PM <DIR> .
01/28/2018 09:25 PM <DIR> ..
03/28/2018 07:14 PM <DIR> e
06/15/2017 07:32 PM <DIR> Default.migrated
03/02/2018 05:41 AM <DIR> MSSQL$SQL2016
03/09/2018 01:30 AM <DIR> MSSQLFDLauncher$SQL2016
06/15/2017 07:28 PM <DIR> Public
03/09/2018 01:30 AM <DIR> ReportServer$SQL2016
01/28/2018 09:25 PM <DIR> SQLAgent$SQL2016
03/02/2018 05:41 AM <DIR> SQLTELEMETRY$SQL2016
01/04/2018 06:26 AM <DIR> testuser

eeyo

ASKER

The reason this came up is because Crashplan allows me to select "e" and/or "E" to back up. When I looked further the contents seem identical, almost like one is shadowing the other. Waiting for Crashplan to respond. I would have thought that it was just a Crashplan bug, but I can have different "view" settings for "e" vs "E" folder and subfolders, and they persist after closing and re-opening the folder.

SOLUTION

John

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

SOLUTION

McKnife

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

Joe Winograd

Notwithstanding the Wikipedia article, the consensus among the experts here is that folder/file names in Windows are case insensitive. The author's output shows only an "e" folder, not an "E" one. Joe's test shows that the Wikipedia statement that "a readme.txt and a Readme.txt can coexist in the same directory" is not true, at least, not via a copy command, and it's hard to fathom another way to create "readme.txt" and "Readme.txt" in the same folder. If someone can do it, please post it here. In the meantime, I'm going to recommend closing this question with all posts that support file names being case insensitive as the solutions, and splitting the points evenly among those experts.