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My Windows 7 Enterprise computer has been crashing fairly frequently recently, so I decided to boot up in safe mode and run the TrendMicro client I have installed. It froze about 10 minutes into the full system scan, so in the spirit of http://whathaveyoutried.com, I started scanning each folder individually. When I got to ProgramData
, the AV failed with an uncaught exception. I then went down a level and tried scanning Application Data
, which failed as well. Imagine my surprise when I open the folder just to see the same folder again!
As far as I can tell, this folder loop continues indefinitely. (If you are trying to recreate this, keep in mind that ProgramData
is a hidden folder.) I'm actually a bit concerned that these are system folders, as this is a brand-new computer with a clean installation.
I guess I have three questions:
- Has anyone else seen/experienced this before? I'm running Win7 SP1.
- How do I fix this? I've run
CHKDSK \F
with no success (although it was incredibly slow). - What are the ramifications of an infinitely recursive directory? Theoretically speaking, each link takes up memory, so shouldn't I have no space available on my hard drive? (I've got about 180GB left.) I noticed that the tree view on the left only shows the "linked folder" icon on the deeper folders--does this mean anything special? (I've circled the icons or lack thereof in red.) How can the OS even resolve this aberration? And above all, what would happen if I were to select "Expand all folders"??? :P
Matt
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Check out http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6913784/multiple-layers-of-application-data-folders-windows7
– EBGreen – 2012-08-15T14:06:36.097@EBGreen Thanks, but what about my last question? – Matt – 2012-08-15T14:14:49.380