System Restore create duplicate files

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

"=?Utf-8?B?RXJpYyBOaWNob2xzb24=?="
<EricNicholson@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>To make a long story short, I ran system restore this afternoon to back out
>of a troubled AV install. I didn't get the results I was looking for and the
>old AV program was back without a working uninstall. So I backed out of that
>restore, attempting to get the system back into the state it was in earlier
>this afternoon. Now I find that it's riddled with duplicate files. 4700 in
>the system32 directory alone. The C: drive is nearly full! This happened on
>all 3 drive (OS, programs, data). I'm tempted to search them out and copy or
>delete them. Is this a wise course of action at this point? What's my next
>step?

Duplicate files cannot occur in a normal situation, as I understand
it. Windows prevents it. So that suggests that either
(a) they aren't really duplicates, perhaps they are in a different
directory or have a subtly different name or type; or
(b) the disk is seriously badly off.

In the second case, make sure you have a backup NOW of everything
important. And your software installation CDs including Windows XP and
all serial numbers. Then try a disk scan. It might fix it, or it
might prove beyond repair, needing a clean install.
----------------------------------------
Aandi Inston quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
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Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

"Aandi Inston" wrote:

> "=?Utf-8?B?RXJpYyBOaWNob2xzb24=?="
> <EricNicholson@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> >To make a long story short, I ran system restore this afternoon to back out
> >of a troubled AV install. I didn't get the results I was looking for and the
> >old AV program was back without a working uninstall. So I backed out of that
> >restore, attempting to get the system back into the state it was in earlier
> >this afternoon. Now I find that it's riddled with duplicate files. 4700 in
> >the system32 directory alone. The C: drive is nearly full! This happened on
> >all 3 drive (OS, programs, data). I'm tempted to search them out and copy or
> >delete them. Is this a wise course of action at this point? What's my next
> >step?
>
> Duplicate files cannot occur in a normal situation, as I understand
> it. Windows prevents it. So that suggests that either
> (a) they aren't really duplicates, perhaps they are in a different
> directory or have a subtly different name or type; or
> (b) the disk is seriously badly off.
>
> In the second case, make sure you have a backup NOW of everything
> important. And your software installation CDs including Windows XP and
> all serial numbers. Then try a disk scan. It might fix it, or it
> might prove beyond repair, needing a clean install.
> ----------------------------------------
> Aandi Inston quite@dial.pipex.com http://www.quite.com
> Please support usenet! Post replies and follow-ups, don't e-mail them.
>
>

I should clarify: If, previously, I had a file named "stuff.txt", I would
now have "stuff.txt" AND "stuff(2).txt". I estimate that there are roughly
2.5Gb of these (2) files on my C: partition alone.

Backups are not a problem. I backup my 2 computers to each other on a
nightly basis.

I saw in the General Discusions forum that one other person experienced this
last Nov. and it appears that he had success with searching for *(2).* files
and deleting them. I would take the added precaution of sorting the list by
date and selecting only those created yesterday for deletion. I may move
rather than delete the files if I have the disk space.

My only concern is whether or not the registry (or something else) now
references the duplicate files.
-- Eric