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Desktop location confusion with OneDrive on windows machines #299
Description
How could the content be improved?
The last few years we have found that learners with windows machines with OneDrive installed can find it difficult to find the data folder on their Desktop. Below is the message we have added to our etherpads and the file path to slides when teaching the various Carpentries Shell lessons. This could be added to the setup part of the lesson.
Windows OneDrive problem with finding Deskstop
If a Windows machine is backed up with enterprise OneDrive, their GUI desktop may be rendered from a folder within OneDrive, which will not match the contents of ~/Desktop. The OneDrive desktop should be accessible using one of the following commands (if the name of the enterprise isn’t clear, look through the output of ls to find the right folder):
BASH Command:
$ cd "~/OneDrive - Name Of Enterprise/Desktop"
$ cd "C:/Users/Username/OneDrive - Name Of Enterprise/Desktop"
One way to spot if the computer is using this kind of configuration is to look at files, folders or links on the desktop. Usually the icon contains a shortcut/arrow symbol if it is a link, or just the plain icon if the file is just saved in the Desktop folder. Files synced with OneDrive contain an additional symbol indicating the sync status (typically blue arrows for ‘sync pending’ or a green tick for ‘synced’).
Activity
jmjamison commentedon Jul 22, 2026
From WSL2
cd /mnt/c/Users/Username/OneDrive
From GitBash
cd OneDrive
pwd
/c/Users/jamie/OneDrive
The lesson files are downloaded to the Desktop and most of the work is done in Desktop/shell-lesson. Personally I tend to ignore OneDrive but it might be good to add some sort of note. So people know how to navigate to or around OneDrive.
Something could be added to 3. Working with files and directories or the instructor notes.
jmjamison commentedon Jul 27, 2026
If there are no objections I'm adding this to the instructor notes
Windows OneDrive Notes
Windows OneDrive might be called 'OneDrive' or have be appended by a local name such as "OneDrive-campus".
Examples using Git Bash
To check:
and in the instructor view of episode 2: navigating the file system: