Windows Explorer copy wrongly offers to merge folders

When copying a folder tree to an empty(!) location using Windows Explorer it often complains about folders already existing in the target location and offers a merge.

This is reproducible on all my machines:

Using Windows Explorer

1. select c:\windows
2. copy to an empty directory
3. Windows shows a dialog "Confirm Folder Replace", offering to merge Windows folder with different create date

I posted about this problem a long time ago, but did not get an explanation.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprogeneral/thread/f44f2402-809f-4a53-a009-df58463a0cac/#49661e88-1eed-43a0-9e74-dedcb07bfc0f