Windows 7 / Vista - moving "My Documents, My Pictures" and other personal folders

Just discovered a "feature" of recent versions of windows that can lead to loss of your data. In fact, this is something that has happened to me, but luckily I've had backups!

If you try to MOVE any of your personal folder within your profile (such as "My Documents", "My Pictures", etc) they will be moved to a new location, but you will still have "My Documents" or "My Pictures" which will point to the new location. Windows does this automatically, so you never loose track of your files. However, later you may discover that it appears that you have files in two locations - the old one on drive C C:\Users\username and in the new one (where ever you've moved the files). If you delete to clean up your computer and delete files from that "OTHER" location - you will erase all of your personal files. You don't actually have files in two locations - Windows makes a link in your "C:\Users\username\ to the new location.

I thought i had files in two places and deleted one of them - well, they were gone from both.

If you've done this - restore from backup. If you don't have a backup - stop using your computer immediately and use a data recovery software before you overwrite those files. They are still probably on your computer, but are marked as "free space" by windows.

Good luck and be careful!