What is %UserProfile%\Roaming?

Question

I have a zero-byte folder under my user profile named Roaming, which contains the following string of folders \Roaming\Intel\Wireless\Settings, although each one is empty except for containing the next folder.

Some perplexing details:

• The Settings folder is hidden, but it and all the other folders are completely empty.
• The Roaming folder is zero bytes in size.
• Folder properties show that Roaming was created in August of 2014, but it hasn't been modified since July 2014.

Since it contains nothing and hasn't been modified for 3 years, I'm guessing it's safe to delete, but I'd really like to know what the hell it is, if anyone has any insights!

Note: This folder is NOT related to %UserProfile%\Appdata\Roaming

Answer 1

Occasionally an improperly written script or program doesn't use the pathname of a known folder correctly and errant folders like yours get created. In your case some application developer forgot to type Appdata when typing the pathname for the correct path of %UserProfile%\Appdata\Roaming (or some variation of that explanation)*. It's pretty obvious from the folder contents it was meant for the real \Appdata\Roaming folder.

This was frequently a problem for Windows XP-era applications moving into the Vista+ world as the latter changed the locations of most of the known folders.

In every case I've encountered this the data in these folders is temporary in nature and can usually be deleted safely. If you're concerned, consider taking a quick backup of the folder and setting it aside for a week or so just to make sure nothing breaks.

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*Actually the developer's true mistake was not using the correct %APPDATA% known folder variable which maps directly to C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming on Vista and later.