XP "makes copies" of photos by itself...Any ideas?

[samp]

Hi,

When I am cleaning up my photo  I often try to select several at once using the "control+left click" keys so I can delete or move them.  As I do so the computer suddenly makes copies of all the selected files.  So then it is a big hassle to remove them all.  If I try to use the same procedure on the copies (Control+Left Click) I only get multiple copies of copies... Aaaarrrggghh.

Is there a way to stop this from happening or another way to select and delete photos?

Many thanks

Samp

[Allan]

If the photos are in sequence use the shift key instead of ctrl. Other than that, not sure why it's happening.

[Salmon Trout]

The unwanted copying is probably the result of accidental drag/dropping. I have had this happen myself. The reason this happens is because you moved your mouse more than 4 pixels while clicking down on a file, so Windows assumes you’ve dragged the files and want to copy them, and is happy to litter your folder with duplicates. An easy way to fix it is to download & install the Microsoft TweakUI Powertoy, and use it to change the drag sensitivity to some figure greater than 4. Or you can do the same thing by manually adjusting these two registry settings upwards from the default value of 4

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\DragWidth
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\DragHeight



Tweak UI doesn't work in Vista, so in that OS you would have to use the manual method I think.

[alexK]

Hi,
I have noticed the same thing:
When deleting Pictures in XP, the system somehow moves the picture(s) inquestion into a "new" folder, and to the Recycle Bin.
Trying to delete the "new" folder or the "new" pictures, again it will move the stuff to a "new" folder and the Recycle Bin.
You can find out by Deleting these Pictures and then search for Pictures created, say today, and they will be all over the place.
I don't know what I did to finally remove them, but I got rid of them.
You may want to look into dumping "Photo Gallery" or whatever. This controlling, pesky,  bossing function forever appears when downloading pictures from a camera.

hope this helps
 

[samp]

Salutations,

Just wanted to thank all who replied to my question. 

The advice was very helpful and I have adjusted my "mouse drag time" and so far haven't
had any more trouble.  Also didn't know the "shift+click" would select a series of photos.

Many thanks again
Samp