Vista - Duplicate pictures in Windows Photo Gallery

My HP Photo Essentials Program stop working. Microsoft advised that I
remove Photo Essentials which I did. I then went to my Windows Photo Gallery
and found that I had as many as 17 duplicate copies of all my photos. It is now
down to 5--don't ask me why. If I remove just one copy to the recycle bin it also removed the original copy from "My Pictures".
1. Can anyone tell me why this happened?
2. Is there a way that I can remove these pictures from my photo gallery
without removing the picture from the "My Picture file?
I wish you all a happy new year and mine will also be happy if any one can
give me some help with this frustrating problem. Thanks
Potosh

Don't think I can help but I thought that when you look at the photo's in Windows Photo Gallery they are just showing what is in your Pictures folder. Vista doesn't use the "My" in front of the folders anymore, so I would have thought that if you delete them from the Gallery you are deleting them from the Picture folder.
Those are my thoughts but I'd wait and see what the experts have to say when they see your post.