Tangled up file paths trying to take Desktop off of OneDrive

Question

So, I don’t like that my desktop folder is in OneDrive. It messed with the performance of my old PC, and I was able to change where the desktop folder lived on my old one without issue.

I now have a new PC, and I went to do the same thing. Rather, I tried to. I seem to have tangled up some directories and folders and I'm worried about trying solutions for similar issues because I might mess it up even worse if I can't adapt those solutions correctly.

So, here's where I started. I went to move it initially, I went to properties and clicked the location tab, and then clicked the Move button. I went to put it onto C:\ (although I've since tried it on other places with the same result of it not working) and I get

Can't redirect child into a parent. the specified path is invalid.

Okay, I understand that (I thought). I instead moved it to a different drive entirely, with the intention of moving it back to the c drive right afterward. When I tried this, it said

failed to build the list of regular subdirectories under d system volume information.

A workaround I found was to say no when it asks this:

Do you want to move all of the files from the old location to the new location?

That seemed to work, as my desktop is now desktop-y (has the recycle bin etc) but now my Users folder only has "Public" in it, no other folder with any names, like the folder with my name-- lcapo-- should be there, but it's not.

What’s weird is that it just seems to be mega invisible? I was able to download an .exe to that folder and even access it but ONLY by copy pasting the actual path. I did change it so I can at least see invisible folders now. However, there's still no folder with lcapo. It says "Default."

Going to properties in the Home bar at the top, when I have Desktop selected, gives me this:

Also, the folder that is being used as my desktop is called Users and it even has that little desktop icon as its picture/thumbnail. The Public folder is visible on my desktop as well as in the file explorer.

There's a hidden Desktop folder here too but I can't do anything with it. On the left you may see a normal folder called Desktop but that was one I made when trying a solution online; it's nothing more than a normal folder with nothing in it.

Any other attempts I've made at moving it results in

The folder can't be moved here: Can't move the folder because there is a folder in the same location that can't be redirected. Access is denied.

I doubt my explanation was thorough or even coherent here, but I hope it's enough info to help me untangle this mess; here's a screenshot with some other information that I hope can help as well.

The items in this Desktop folder are not the ones that are in the folder that is currently my desktop, the one labeled Users.

If there's other screenshots/more info you could use, just let me know where I have to go and I'm happy to do it.

Answer 1

The fact that the Public folder is displaying on your Desktop and Users is displaying under This PC and the shell:UsersFilesFolder makes me think you redirected the folder to C:\Users.

Open regedit.exe and navigate to:

• HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

and check the path of Desktop in the right-hand pane. Since you never properly turned off backup, change the value to:
= %USERPROFILE%\OneDrive\Desktop

Then sign out and back in. If Desktop is now showing under This PC, re-enable OneDrive and turn off backup for the Desktop. Then you should be able ot specify any locaiton via the Location tab in the Properties dialog. Then move files and folders you want on your Desktop to the folder you specified in the re-location.

When you re-direct folcers via the Locationtab, Do not specify the parent and expect the folder to be created with the default name, rather create the folder beforehand (if necessary) and be sure to specify it as the location.