Why do the same programs appear on both C and D? How can I safely remove the copies on D?

[scherz0]

1. I never deliberately installed programs on my D. Thus why do some programs appear on both C and D?

2. How can I harmlessly remove the duplicated (on both C and D) programs from D? Please see screen shot below.

3. As you can see below, I have merely 1 Windows installed.

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Something is mirroring items on your C drive to the D drive. Are the physically separate drives or are they partitions? If they are physically separate just disconnect D drive and see if it affects your programs.
The thing is if you haven't directed some things to D drive the only other thing I can come up with did you (a.) do a software upgrade from Win 10 or (b.) D drive doesn't have some sort of recovery partition. What puzzles me is I doubt you directed some programs to install on D, no easy feat or you have something mirroring some items to D drive. Do the contents of the matching folders on C and D match, dates and all?
Well check all that stuff out and let us know what you find.

 

[scherz0]

Something is mirroring items on your C drive to the D drive. Are the physically separate drives or are they partitions? If they are physically separate just disconnect D drive and see if it affects your programs.

My drive C is a SSD. Drive D is a 5400 RPM HDD.

I don't need to physically disconnect the D drive, correct? I can merely disable or Spin Down the D drive with mouse clicks?

The thing is if you haven't directed some things to D drive the only other thing I can come up with did you (a.) do a software upgrade from Win 10 or (b.) D drive doesn't have some sort of recovery partition.

Yes. I recently upgraded to Windows 11 from Windows 10.

What puzzles me is I doubt you directed some programs to install on D, no easy feat or you have something mirroring some items to D drive. Do the contents of the matching folders on C and D match, dates and all?
Well check all that stuff out and let us know what you find.

You're correct. I never deliberately installed programs on D:\.

No, the matching folders on C:\ and D:\ don't match. Isn't this mismatch obvious from my screenshot?

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Yup. I didn't look at the dates. Those may be archival files. You can safely delete any folder on D drive you don't care to keep. Not sure when, how or why your stuff was backed up on D drive but it appears that's what happened.
Having a 5400 rpm secondary mag drive is a good strategy for safe local back-ups, so looking good.