Hardware

Why do I have endless recursive Application Data directories and how do I get rid of them?

I'm running Windows Vista and I run applications that give an explorer-type representation of the drive, showing file/directory sizes.

When I run them, I get errors that a directory path is too long. (One application simply stops responding.) The base directory is C:\Program Data\Application Data. The problem is it appears to have endless Application Data directories under itself (e.g. C:\Program Data\Application Data\Application Data\Application Data........) ad-nauseum.

Under each Application Data directory, all it seems that all the same directories and files that are in the top-level one are there but I can't even get to the files.

Can anyone explain this and how do I "fix" it?