Description

Windows 11 update reportedly creates a mysterious folder on your system drive that's definitely confusing but ultimately harmless. If you're confused by a mysterious folder appearing on your system drive in Windows 11, you're not alone.

According to Tech News, the problem with this strange folder creation is related to the latest April update for Windows 11 24H2. After installing this upgrade, apparently many users, including Windows Latest, noticed that an empty folder called inetpub was created on the drive where Windows 11 is installed (usually drive C).

This folder is empty and does nothing, but its appearance may cause considerable confusion among Windows 11 users who, for whatever reason, open their drive and happen to notice this folder. As Windows Latest explains, it looks likeThis is related to IIS (Internet Information Services), which is Microsoft's web server software for developers. The inetpub folder is used to store things like web pages that a developer might test locally on the host computer.

If you're panicking at this point and thinking that this update has installed a whole bunch of software you don't need on Windows 11 without your permission, don't worry. In fact, nothing was installed, just an empty folder that was accidentally created. In other words, no harm was done. However, the more cynical may want to leave it alone (since it's empty and doesn't do anything - unless its presence bothers you, of course).

Analysis: A game of mouse and folder?

This is a really strange feature, and another in a long string of strange Windows 11 bugs. As for the cause, we can assume that somewhere in the April cumulative update, Microsoft was making some changes to the IIS components. This process probably mistakenly created the IIS storage folder on devices that weren't using the software - but that's all that happened.

So this is a relatively harmless bug and more of a source of confusion than anything else. The danger, however, is that strange behavior on a PC like this might lead a Windows 11 user to believe that they might have fallen victim to a virus. Mysterious things appearing on your drive is, of course, a clear sign of a virus infection (along with your PC slowing down dramatically or suffering from strange pop-ups).

Anyway, rest assured that nothing bad has happened to your system and hopefully Microsoft will be able to fix this flaw fairly quickly. However, contrary to this idea, the fact that there are historical reports of this folder appearing seemingly randomly on system drives does not give me confidence that the software giant will eradicate this problem.

So, even if you delete it as Windows Latest suggests (at your own risk, I might add) – and it does so well – there’s no guarantee that at some point in the future, this folder won’t reappear on your Windows 11 drive. It seems like some people have been playing the “mouse and the inetpub folder” game for years, and if that’s really the case, it’s Microsoft’s job to provide a permanent solution.