Did you accidentally have multiple files and folders selected? That is the only logical explanation for the behavior, either that or a once in a lifetime bug which you were lucky enough to encounter.

Thank you for your reply. That is why i felt i needed to post this on the forum, cause i did not accidentally select multiple files. this was very weird. to put it precisely: with my mouse pointer, i rightclicked the folder i just created which was called 'new folder', selected 'rename'. typed in the new foldername i wanted. and pressed the enter key. then for maybe 1-2 seconds nothing happened as the explorer.exe had frozen, then all my icons dissapeared for a splitsecond and then as if the computer was processing multiple commands from a queue the icons lined up in rows (my previous icon arrangement went away). and there it was, 42 icons out of 65 had been renamed the same name as my original folder. i have 10 years experience at server/Desktop support but not seen this before in any version.

Strange indeed, can you find a way in which you can re-produce this problem? I understand that is probably not possible to re-produce a problem like this, which also makes it impossible to troubleshoot from any angle. However if you can try to find a situation in which you can repeatedly trigger this behavior then it could be patched in a future version of Windows 7.

I cannot reproduce. Had an idea thou, I have this third-party app called Stardock Fences installed. it addes some code to explorer.exe. I'd guess its the source of this problem. Some users have reported that explorer.exe crashes sometimes when they create, rename folders on their desktop (http://forums.stardock.com/374496). Probably the cause, evil third-party app.

Ah yes, that might have been good to ask of me if you had any custom desktop management tools on your computer. I would agree with your diagnosis, if the tool is known to cause explorer stability then I would come to the same conclusion.

;o) didnt think about it in my first diagnostics, since i have not been using it and had forgotten about it being installed in the first place. just something i tested few months ago. thank you for your time!

No problem, have a nice day!

Problem with renaming in Windows 7. Created a folder, then renamed it to a name. when i pressed enter, 42 other random files and folders on my desktop got the same name. Does anyone know anything about this?