Missing Directory in Windows Explorer

Below is a screenshot of a puzzle I am not smart enough to figure out.

I have an internal backup disk that contains two main directories, called "Disk 1" and "Disk 2". "Disk 1" is the backup of my C: system drive; Disk 2 is the backup of my D: Data drive.

The "Disk 1" backup is not a clone or restorable copy of the system drive, it contains only the files that aren't "in use" or "access denied" during the backup process. The great majority of the files are copied over.

On top is my Windows Explorer view of the contents of my "C:\Users" directory.

Underneath it is the view of the same directory on my backup disk.

Why does the "All Users" directory on the C: System drive not show in Windows Explorer? It absolutely exists. As an experiment I renamed the "All Users" directory on the backup disk to "xxAll Users", and the backup program dutifully removed the "xx" version and recreated the "All Users" directory, subdirectories and files from the invisible "All Users" directory on the C: system drive. I watched it copy, file by file, from "C:\Users\All Users" to "E:\File 1\Users\All Users".

There is a file I wish to get rid of in the "C:\Users\All Users" directory, and another that I want to teach my backup program to ignore, and I can't do that without access to the directory.

Can anyone (a) tell me what is going on here, and (b) show me how to fix it?

tanstaafl.

The quick option to get there is simply to click in the address bar (the bit that says 'This PC -> Local Disk (C:) -> Users) and type in C:\Users\All Users, then hit enter.

To stop Explorer from hiding the folder from showing up, so you don't need to type in the path to get to it, you need to disable the option to hide protected OS files. From your Explorer window, go to View -> Options -> Change Folder and Search Options, then in the window that opens, choose the 'View' tab, and under Advanced Settings uncheck the 'Hide protected operating system files' checkbox.

Incidentally, C:\Users\All Users is a symbolic link to C:\ProgramData (although that's probably hidden by the same option). So when you go there (either by entering the path manually, or by clicking on it when unhidden) you'll actually end up in C:\ProgramData.

Thank you. I NEVER would have figured that out on my own.

tanstaafl.

By the way, Doug, this is the critical part. There are a few things that Windows creates links for (symlinks or hard links or whatnot), and your file-by-file backup likely doesn't try to copy those.