I just set up a new HP laptop with Windows 10. I haven’t installed
any programs or even connected it to the Internet yet, so it doesn’t
have much on it other than the OS and the bloatware HP included
that I haven’t already removed. There are 178 items in the folder:
C:\Users\Jeff\Searches\Indexed Locations
Many of them are shortcuts. Many are Internet shortcuts. Many
are folders. A very few are executables, documents, or images.
They look almost like the contents of the Start menu. But the
name of the folder is “Indexed Locations”. Exactly what are all
these items?
— Jeff, in Minneapolis
There are directories, and there are folders.
Directories are logical structures in a file system, and they typically hold the actual files (or more accurately, the references to the files, but that’s a distinction for the file system talk).
Folders are an Explorer concept and are, according to Microsoft, more correctly called Shell Namespaces (but I like folders, so that’s what I’m going to use). While there’s normally a 1:1 ratio of directories to folders, there are folders without directories, and while exceedingly rare, there are directories without folders. The classic example of a folder without a directory would be the Control Panel, or your desktop. An example of a directory without a folder would be the $Recycle.bin, since attempting to navigate that in Explorer will dump you into the Recycle Bin (which is another folder without a directory).
If you’re questioning what Explorer is telling you about your file system (and you should), you need to check another, less “user friendly” shell. Thankfully, Windows comes with CMD, aka the Command Prompt (which is being phased out, but details!).
C:\Users\▜▙\Searches>dir /a Volume in drive C has no label. Volume Serial Number is 8E69-32A1 Directory of C:\Users\▜▙\Searches 11/09/2016 04:27 PM <DIR> . 11/09/2016 04:27 PM <DIR> .. 11/09/2016 04:27 PM 524 desktop.ini 09/22/2016 08:27 PM 248 Everywhere.search-ms 09/22/2016 08:27 PM 248 Indexed Locations.search-ms 09/22/2016 08:28 PM 859 winrt--{S-1-5-21-1001}-.searchconnector-ms 4 File(s) 1,879 bytes 2 Dir(s) 29,417,353,216 bytes free C:\Users\▜▙\Searches>type "Indexed Locations.search-ms" <?xml version="1.0"?> <persistedQuery version="1.0"> <query> <kindList> <kind name="item"/> </kindList> <scope knownScopeID="{f60163ce-2b8d-458d-ab2c-40f215767514}" /> </query> </persistedQuery> C:\Users\▜▙\Searches>Note that “Searches” isn’t really adding anything that hasn’t been there since Vista, we now just have a view into the index database.
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