Why is a duplicate folder being created in users/public/public documents on Windows 7?

Question

A java application is using the %PUBLIC% environment variable to get the path to "c:\users\public". It then appends that with "public documents" and tries to read a file from the folder and fails (it previously read and wrote the file successfully). The application shows no data and when it tries to write to the "c:\users\public\public documents" folder a duplicate "c:\users\public\public documents" folder is created with the new version of the content. You can still get to the original content using windows explorer and see it all there, but now there are two "public documents" folders.

Previously it was reading and writing to the public documents folder without any problem. This is happening with every account on the system, but it is still working just fine on every other PC the software is installed on.

Answer 1

What Windows Explorer doesn't make evident is that the real folder is not actually called "Public Documents", but is actually called "Documents". The "Public Documents" is simply a display name, but as far as NTFS is concerned you can have both a "Documents" and "Public Documents" folder with no ill effects.

Use %PUBLIC%\Documents to refer to the actual folder you're looking for.