[HN Gopher] A surprising way to lose your files on Windows
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A surprising way to lose your files on Windows
This sad sequence of events just happened to a relative, and
they're distraught. I haven't used Windows for ~15 years but since
it was my area of expertise back then I still get lumbered with
these problems. This one really surprised me though. They logged
into Windows 7 (I know, upgrade...) and it looked like their files
were missing. In a panic, they opened Explorer and searched for
their files. They turned up in the search. They just didn't show up
in the usual "My Documents", "My Pictures", "My Videos" paths.
They decided to move the files "to the correct place". And then
they shut the computer down. The next time they started it, the
same thing happened. This is where I got called in, because _this_
time, the files didn 't show up in a search. I told them to turn
the computer off immediately and drop it with me. Can you guess
what happened? Well, check this out: - Windows couldn't use their
user profile because it was corrupted - So it created a temporary
profile in "C:\Users\TEMP". (This wasn't obvious to the user
because Explorer hides the 'detail' of the file path and simply
shows the username) - Unwittingly, when they moved the precious
files to the "correct" place, they were putting them into a
_temporary_ profile. - On shutdown, Windows promptly deleted the
temporary profile, so "C:\Users\TEMP" got wiped along with all of
the files. I was frankly astonished that Windows would drop them
into a temporary user profile without dire warnings about its
transience. Anyway, now I have to try to recover not only the
files, but the directory structures. I'm not even sure it's
possible... :(
Author : raffraffraff
Score : 235 points
Date : 2022-10-01 15:08 UTC (7 hours ago)
| sammy2255 wrote:
| You can use Recuva. Just make sure you run it from a USB or
| something. Try to prevent as many writes to that disk as possible
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Well after using TestDisk and PhotoRec, not being happy with
| the results, I used Recuva and I now have over 90% of the data
| back _with the correct directory structure_. So for anyone
| reading this thread, I can 't update the original post, but
| this is the answer. It's a GUI, it's super simple to use and it
| recovered files and folders better than any other free tool.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| That was the option I was going to go with, but it means using
| my Wife's Windows machine. Also TestDisk or PhotoRec, but I
| don't think they can recover directory structure, so it would
| be thousands of files all higgledy-piggledy.
| randerson wrote:
| Without knowing what types of files they lost, this might not
| be too bad. For the first round of organizing, sort by file
| extension. E.g. Anything with .exe was probably Downloads,
| video files go to My Videos, and so on. A number of apps will
| organize JPGs into a consistent directory structure based on
| the date or other fields in the metadata. For the remaining
| documents, view by x-large icons so your relative can quickly
| categorize what goes where.
| Thaxll wrote:
| Not if you have a SSD.
| amelius wrote:
| Can't you recover the files using some tool?
|
| I remember undeleting was possible in the old FAT days.
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Theoretically yes. Deleting a file doesn't actually delete
| anything, besides the file table entry. The contents still
| remain on the disk, until they get overwritten, that is.
| somat wrote:
| My condolences, I had a corrupt profile once, I was a bit angry
| that I could find no way to uncorrupt it. I could find no tools
| that would fix it. I ended up having to remove the user and
| create a new one. Thankfully no file loss but the whole process
| was made harder than it should have been because the only user
| account on the system was the corrupt one and it refused to log
| in due to the profile problem.
|
| My lessons learned from it.
|
| windows profiles are far too complicated, it was hard to find low
| level information on how they work or how to diagnose and fix a
| bad profile.
|
| make sure you have and know another login. preferably the admin
| one.
| sgtaylor5 wrote:
| Would this have helped?
| https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/186131-user-profile-se...
| mnahkies wrote:
| My memory is shaky as it's been a while since I used it, but I
| vaguely remember there being a hidden built-in administrator
| account that could possibly be used in this situation. Can't
| remember if you would need to set a password on it / enable it
| ahead of time though
|
| Edit: this might be what you meant by _the_ admin one (rather
| than a)
| swayvil wrote:
| Being a Linux user (Debian, Mate), I have never suffered "profile
| corruption". Or "lost" a file that I recall.
|
| Is this a normal thing in Windows?
| [deleted]
| guilhas wrote:
| I have lost, dd'ing the main disk/partition by accident while
| creating boot usbs, several times
| swayvil wrote:
| That is definitely a way to do it. DDing is scary to me.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Sorry, a tangential question ... my friend's 2011 Macbook Air's
| hard drive gave up and she has all of her photos there. The
| Macbook doesn't boot, just shows a white screen. Can the photos
| be salvaged somehow?
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| I'm not sure off the top of my head if MacOS was encrypting the
| drive at that time, but you might try plugging the drive into
| FTK Imager or Autopsy. I believe both of these tools will do
| some data carving.
|
| But before you do that, make sure the issue isn't the hard
| drive itself. If the hard drive is damaged, you may still be
| able to recover data, but it'll need to be done by someone who
| knows what they are doing. If the drive is spinning
| irregularly, or clicking, or not recognized by another system
| you might have issues.
|
| Source - I used to work in a digital forensics lab.
| netsharc wrote:
| Wow, my guess was since it was 2011, they would've still been
| using an old-fashioned spinning disk or probably an SSD with
| that form factor and normal SATA connection, but they were
| already using M.2 SSD, but a Frankenstein one where an
| adapter is needed:
|
| https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/n4Fo16YKi45Y5JxL.f.
| ..
|
| Source: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Air+11-Inch+Mid+
| 2011+So...
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| That is surprising! I also assumed that being a 2011 it
| would be a spinning disk drive.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| thank you!
| nrclark wrote:
| Try putting the laptop in "target disk" mode, and see if you
| can access it from another Mac. It'll make the laptop act like
| an external hard-drive, and then you can plug it into a
| different computer and copy off your files (or maybe try a
| filesystem repair)
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| will try that, thanks!
| signaru wrote:
| This is why my work documents and data are always on a second
| drive (or partition if hardware is limited). I haven't used the
| default Windows folders for years and it's only some software
| creating folders under "My Documents" that I just ignore. You
| never know when you'll have to reformat the main Windows drive.
| It also proved convenient when I changed computers as I just
| plugged in the data drive I had always been using, and all my
| familiar documents are there. Of course, there's also the cloud
| to backup the more important stuff.
| dsego wrote:
| That's why on linux you can mount your home directory to a
| separate partition. You can reinstall the OS but still keep all
| your files and settings intact. And even better, it's the
| default location like "My Documents" so the OS and apps know
| where to look for things.
| timbit42 wrote:
| I've seen this happen a number of times. Pretty sure I first saw
| it on WinXP.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| >I was frankly astonished that Windows would drop them into a
| temporary user profile without dire warnings about its
| transience.
|
| There is warnings... Now the Win7 one is just the notification
| baloon and easy to miss but the 10 one is pretty "in your face"
|
| Windows 7: https://imgur.com/a/ao5AtO6
|
| Windows 10: https://imgur.com/a/Hl9XnZV
| mrtksn wrote:
| Too long and too verbose and too ordinary for such an critical
| warning. The title "You have been logged on with a temporary
| profile." is so unoffencive that doesn't really make you read
| the paragraph explaining what it means. It sounds like
| something that you can deal with later, it should be "All files
| will be deleted upon sign out" and then you can read and learn
| that this is a temporary profile.
|
| Windows likes to tell stuff of no urgency all the time and
| people will close those click. click. click.
|
| IMHO when the computer is used in extraordinary situation the
| UI should be making it very clear. Probably all kind of
| customisation should be removed so the user feel like in wrong
| place and has high alertness. When moving files into folders
| that will be deleted the user should be warned with a short and
| scary message(macOS warns you that the files will be deleted
| from the cloud if you move files out of iCloud synced folders
| like Desktop and Documents).
| naikrovek wrote:
| guess what? all customization is removed, because that
| configuration is stored in the user profile.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Good point but just in case if the user has not been using
| a customised UI, maybe everything should look non-default
| and out of place. If I remember correctly, the system
| defaults in a low resolution when something goes wrong and
| this may help.
|
| The point is, the user should be made aware that this is
| not business as usual and proceed with extreme caution. A
| popup with cryptic title and long paragraph won't do it.
| hulitu wrote:
| Never ever store valuable files on those "virtual folders" on
| Windows: My Documents, My Pictures etc. Avoid storing valuable
| files in the user profile. Windows will get confused and you
| might lose data. This is especially true if you use a local
| language in windows.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > This wasn't obvious to the user because Explorer hides the
| 'detail' of the file path and simply shows the username
|
| I really really dislike Windows when it hides paths, for example,
| "My Pictures". Where the heck is that?
|
| This lunacy infects Windows applications, like Quicken and
| Thunderbird, which spew themselves and their data into gawd knows
| where hidden directories. Why can't they simply do the obvious?
| Create a \Quicken directory in the root, and have a
| \Quicken\program and \Quicken\userdata ? But noooo.
| TakeBlaster16 wrote:
| > Create a \Quicken directory in the root
|
| Windows has an existing convention for this, like Linux's XDG.
| Imagine if you looked at your Linux filesystem root and saw
| /boot, /dev, /usr, /tmp, and /Quicken.
| SCLeo wrote:
| Same can be said about linux. where exactly is "~"? And which
| hard drive is /etc currently on? Sure, if you have setup the
| system yourself or know how to use linux commands, you can
| figure it out with ease, but so does on Windows (Right click ->
| properties).
| kuratkull wrote:
| I use both operating systems. I never have questions about my
| locations in Linux, but I constantly wonder about the
| abstractions Windows throws at me.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > Why can't [Quicken and other Windows apps] simply do the
| obvious? Create a \Quicken directory in the root, and have a
| \Quicken\program and \Quicken\userdata ?
|
| Networked machines. (Aside from the obvious security problems
| on a multi-user installation.) The "gawd knows where hidden
| directories" (of which there are two, %APPDATA% and
| %LOCALAPPDATA%, plus, on a recent Windows version, a number of
| compatibility links and some sort of integrity level thing) are
| segregated into the part which should have an authoritative
| copy on the file server ("roaming") and the part that can or
| has to stay on the workstation ("local").
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > I really really dislike Windows when it hides paths, for
| example, "My Pictures". Where the heck is that?
|
| Android has been copying Apple in that it now also has
| automagic folders and file managers. I also remember Google
| doing some idiotic A/B tests some moons ago of hiding the
| actual page result URL, it was one of the reasons (on top of
| search quality) that I stopped using it.
|
| On Android you now have to go through multiple settings to
| enable explicit paths as if was somehow an 'advanced' feature
| to show an explicit file path.
|
| I assume it is mostly driven by UX somehow it is now an agreed
| truth that file manager abstractions are too complex for the
| average user to grasp therefore must be vigourously hidden at
| all cost.
| ribit wrote:
| What does Apple have to do with it? Their folder structure is
| fairly straightforward and transparent. Windows stuff is
| definitely the craziest I've encountered.
| amelius wrote:
| The idea that Apple are experts in UI/UX has to stop. Nobody
| should be copying them.
| oneplane wrote:
| That could apply to HN users as well; the idea that we are
| the general user population has to stop. Nobody outside of
| our bubble actually maintains their file hierarchy.
|
| Or to people in different age brackets: for a few years
| now, people have finished uni while doing all their work on
| phones and tables without a desktop OS involved. No files,
| no desktop, no actual applications. We should stop copying
| desktop mentalities into modern workflows.
|
| Or the other way around: nobody has desks or paper folders
| in file cabinets anymore, nobody needs to physically handle
| files and organise them, nor do their have boxes for
| physical mail that comes "in" and goes "out". We should
| stop copying legacy office concepts into software.
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| One reason for hiding paths is localisation. On modern Windows,
| the path will always be Pictures but it will be displayed with
| whatever the local translation is. On older versions (and,
| maybe, modern Windows on a machine upgraded from old
| versions?), the path was the localised name!
|
| macOS is the same.
| alkonaut wrote:
| The only good way to handle user data like photos is the way
| iOS does it. Strictly one place for images. If there is a path
| then the user doesn't see it because they don't _need_ to see
| it. The storage and directory structure is an implementation
| detail.
|
| The second best is a fully manual directory structure with no
| "surface" added. But this is not nearly as good for the average
| user.
|
| By far the worst one is what you get when you (correctly) like
| Microsoft realize you are in the second category but you'd like
| to be in the first. The end result is an annoying middle ground
| that has plagued windows for a long time now. They probably
| (incorrectly) assumed they could get to the iOS situation
| eventually.
|
| Separating the application and its binaries isn't a bad idea
| though. I don't want to back up applications, just their data,
| for example. And I want to be able to have different
| permissions for the app binaries and elsewhere. So
| programs\Quicken and data\Quicken would be better than the
| other way around. And this isn't far from what windows does. If
| I create an app I put the user data in %appdata%\myprogram. The
| folder is annoyingly hard to find though but that's more an
| explorer UX issue than a problem with how the files are stored.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I have a folder on my computer called "Graduate School".
| Inside are subfolders for each of the classes I'm taking.
| Inside these and further subfolders are files such as:
|
| * Videos I need to watch for class.
|
| * PDFs I need to read for class.
|
| * Word documents I am writing for class.
|
| * Photos, videos, and audio recordings I will use to write
| papers for class.
|
| The "iOS model" would have me segment all of this data by
| file type. The PDF from New York State on K-12 educational
| standards would be next to my 2021 tax returns. My paper on
| single-sex schools would be next to the technical
| documentation for a web app I'm developing. This would be
| _terrible_.
|
| Files need to be organized by _purpose_ , not file type. _I_
| know what my files are for. My computer does not.
|
| This is also a major reason why I hate my iPhone.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Yeah, I too organize my files by subject, not file type.
| The latter is crazy.
| wellbehaved wrote:
| This is what happens when you let non-technical people direct
| technical people. Really the only kind of person that should
| manage and direct a technical person is an even wiser technical
| person.
| darepublic wrote:
| I had a resume.json file under my user folder and windows 10
| simply won't find it in the search bar. It will find another
| identically named file on a folder on desktop. I have no idea why
| it cant find it and I'm sure these is some setting I could look
| up to ameliorate the problem but I am still blaming windows for
| this.
| layer8 wrote:
| For filename-based search, use Everything:
| https://www.voidtools.com/. It's much faster and more reliable
| than Windows search.
| nope96 wrote:
| Wow, I haven't thought about that program for years. I'd
| thought it was abandoned.
| accrual wrote:
| I still frequently pop open Command Prompt and "dir /s
| file.ext" just to avoid using Explorer's search. And that's as
| someone who likes using Windows.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| It may just be settings but that's just as inexcusable. If
| default settings prevent a search feature to find exact
| filename matches on a system targeted at end users, the default
| settings are broken.
|
| What is so baffling to me is that it's not being fixed. It
| would be understandable if it only affected power users or if
| it was a launch-day issue getting patched in the first week.
| But it isn't.
| lazide wrote:
| Lately Microsoft has been breaking a _lot_ of bread and
| butter type stuff.
|
| See the recent experiences with Notepad or Voice Recorder for
| examples.
| brudgers wrote:
| It sucks to lose files.
|
| Not having a backup is a platform agnostic way to lose files, and
| works pretty reliably given sufficient time.
|
| Windows 8 came out in 2008.
| 2143 wrote:
| > Windows 8 came out in 2008.
|
| Typo; you meant to say 2012.
| pwg wrote:
| Sorry for your relatives experience, that must be very
| distressing for them.
|
| However, this also shows why having a "backup" is _always_ a good
| idea. So when /if you do recover what you can recover, you might
| also consider setting them up with some form of automatic backup
| such that should this (or a disk failure, which is always a
| possibility) occur in the future, recovery can be "restore from
| latest backup" instead of the task you are now facing.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Of course backup is always a good idea.
|
| However, an equally good idea when faced with a sudden and
| utterly unexpected situation, is to not immediately try to
| solve the problem without understanding what actually happened.
| The chances of the "fix" doing more harm than good is high.
|
| That said, consumer software should definitely not assume that
| the user understands how the internals work. In this case,
| rather than a popup being shows, it would have been more
| appropriate to give the user a full-screen walkthrough, similar
| to the first-launch experience, explaining what has happene,
| what Windows has done, that the documents and pictures are most
| likely safe, and finally include warnings about the active
| profile, and associated documents and pictures, being deleted
| when logging out.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Haha, I asked "Is there a backup?". Answer: "Yes, but it's from
| months ago"
| layer8 wrote:
| Buy them a second drive (if possible) and activate File
| History with that drive as the target.
| inetsee wrote:
| A backup from months ago is (somewhat) better than a backup
| from years ago or no backup at all.
| _Microft wrote:
| Was the profile actually corrupted or was that their
| interpretation? Losing connection to an online Microsoft account
| can also result in a user ending up with a temporary account.
|
| (My story: just last week I fixed a temporary profile issue for
| an acquaintance and all that had happened was that Windows messed
| up the connection with her online Microsoft account. After
| signing out and in again, it worked fine. I was surprised at
| first because I wasn't aware that such a thing as temporary
| profiles existed. It became clear that she was working on a wrong
| profile once I opened a shell and the path before the prompt said
| "c:\users\temp".)
|
| There are definitely warnings that any work/data stored in the
| temporary profile would be lost, so maybe they did not take these
| seriously enough.
|
| The only thing that I actually find absolutely unforgivable is
| that the temporary profile is named after her normal account.
| Creating temporary accounts with ample warnings, yeah, not great.
| Pretending to be the profile of the user...? Nope
| criddell wrote:
| > Was the profile actually corrupted
|
| How do you diagnose a corrupt profile? What causes corruption?
| Is there some diagnostic I can run that will detect and repair
| corruption before it's too late?
| raffraffraff wrote:
| ^ yeah, this. Since the user doesn't create their own
| profile, and it's all arcane internal windows crap, why can't
| it be a bit more helpful than "Woopsie, you're in a temporary
| profile now! Normal rules do not apply." Like, "Do you want
| Windows to create a new profile and try to migrate your data
| to it?"
| rejectfinite wrote:
| >Losing connection to an online Microsoft account can also
| result in a user ending up with a temporary account.
|
| Not on Windows 7
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Losing connection to an online Microsoft account can also
| result in a user ending up with a temporary account.
|
| What the fuck?!
|
| So it all but forces you to link your identity to something
| Microsoft owns... just to refuse your identity back and
| throwing you into some unrecognizable woods if Microsoft fails
| to validate it.
|
| I guess failing to log you on your own computer because MS is
| down would enrage people. So it's better to gaslight them until
| they give up.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Lol this is why i have a reminder at the end of every month
| to log in to some critical but not often used accounts just
| to make sure it's still there lol. I lost a yahoo account
| after they started their use it or lose it approach.
| _Microft wrote:
| Creating an account allows to choose between using a
| Microsoft account or creating a local account.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| But doesn't windows later prompt you to migrate to a
| Microsoft account?
|
| And there's this nagging alert that keeps popping up:
|
| "Microsoft account problem."
|
| "We need to fix your microsoft account. (Most likely your
| password changed). Select here to fix it in shared
| experiences settings."
|
| Which I assume most novice users would obey.
|
| https://answers.microsoft.com/en-
| us/windows/forum/all/seeing...
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| I'm not saying you're wrong, but nothing at the link you
| posted (that I could see) says that that message would
| migrate a local account to an online one.
| Tempest1981 wrote:
| Ok, fair enough. So what does it mean? This is seen on
| _local_ Windows accounts, but it 's referring to
| Microsoft accounts.
| salawat wrote:
| Also, in the latest versions of the windows 11 install or
| OEM first boot setups, the only way you can get the local
| account option is to kill every network connection. The
| local account option is hidden otherwise.
|
| My ritual for family machine setup is locate wifi kill
| switch-> if not available, announce wireless going down->
| kill network->setup to local account->reenable network
|
| It's patently infuriating. Throw in where I've had family
| members set up Microsoft accounts with only 1 form of
| auth (Phone number), change that, them get locked out of
| their Microsft account for a month because of Microsoft's
| daft policies. Though I didn't set up that machine. It
| boggles the mind that Microsoft's default flow would run
| the risk of such an outcome.
| tech234a wrote:
| Alternatively you can enter no@thankyou.com as the
| username and a random password, which causes the login to
| fail, allowing local account setup [1].
|
| [1]:
| https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-11/269419/tip-
| set-u...
| salawat wrote:
| ...That is horrifying.
|
| No we won't just add a "No thanks" button, but we'll set
| up an undocumented magic username to serve the same
| purpose?
|
| And to make it even more nightmarish, where is that
| check? Is it extractable from the installer binary? Or is
| it some weird exception case implemented in server code
| only viewable by microsoft?
|
| For that matter, who owns thankyou.com? Is there some
| unfortunate sod with no@thankyou.com as an email address?
|
| _There is so much wrong with this. I can 't even..._
| PascLeRasc wrote:
| You're thinking this through much more than Microsoft
| ever did. The OP was only saying to pretend that you
| can't log into an existing account.
| salawat wrote:
| That doesn't fix the issue. They are going dark patterm,
| which _is the bloody issue_.
|
| There is nothing about that setup that isn't an exercise
| in plausibly deniable forced on-ramping. No it isn't a
| best practice to create the illusion you can't use an
| operating system without agreeing to a cloud services
| contract.
|
| That's BS, and should be called out as such. UX is trying
| to gaslight the non-technical into services they don't
| need, and I'm willing to go out on a limb that everyone
| in the market is trying to converge on that exact
| practice.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| Not on modern Windows 11, though you can still do so by
| saying you use the computer professionally, entering bad
| credentials in the MS login and then clicking the "local
| account" button. Who knows how long that'll keep working,
| though.
| easton wrote:
| If you click "Domain join instead" on the Azure AD login
| screen it gives up and asks you to make a local account,
| which you can then use to join the domain once you get to
| the desktop.
|
| Domain joining from setup is impossible (it requires a
| reboot, and then group policy could push something that
| breaks the rest of the out-of-box experience), so it's
| safe to assume that will always be there (unless they do
| a major change to how AD joining works, but they probably
| won't since they consider it "legacy").
| rejectfinite wrote:
| On Pro you can.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/TXNtJHy
|
| Select "Join a domain/corparete" network and there is a
| button for offline account.
| scrame wrote:
| Not any more. You can do it if you are completely offline
| during initial setup, but if you do the first network setup
| it won't let you continue until you set up an MS account.
| I'm sure 11 does the same thing.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| On Pro you can.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/TXNtJHy
|
| Select "Join a domain/corparete" network and there is a
| button for offline account.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| "Allows you to choose" is absolutely the wrong way to
| describe it.
|
| But yes, if you get an script with the set of actions that
| make local accounts possible, you can replicate them.
| _Microft wrote:
| It's easy to miss but it is/was absolutely possible to
| decline creating a Microsoft account when installing
| Windows 10.
| sbierwagen wrote:
| You can decline to create a Microsoft account but it will
| prompt you to make one again every time you install
| updates and there's only an option to "remind me later"
| nolok wrote:
| Original windows 10 offered it as an option.
|
| But the current versions of windows 10 only offer that if
| you don't have internet (no ethernet cable in, and
| answered "I don't have a wifi" in the screen before user
| creation), if you connected to the wifi it won't show the
| option for local account.
| lazide wrote:
| Long ago it was always the advice to never use an odd
| numbered windows release.
|
| Seems like it still holds!
| raffraffraff wrote:
| The temporary profile doesn't really pretend to be the user,
| but Explorer's default (which I hate) is to obscure the full
| path, "C:\Users\TEMP" and just show the username. You have to
| hit "CTRL + l" to see the actual path. You can't even navigate
| 'up' a directory to see where you are, and if you right-click
| in that directory there is no "Properties". I tried talking
| them through this on the phone before they shut the computer
| off. It was basically impossible to figure out over the phone.
| This type of "magic" bullshit really irritates me.
| [deleted]
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > This type of "magic" bullshit really irritates me.
|
| Microsoft seems to have tried to get rid of outmoded notions
| such as directories, without ever articulating what new model
| they favoured. So you get these privileged spaces (I have no
| better word) like "Documents". They've tried to make Explorer
| as invisible as possible.
|
| But they never finished the job! So you end up with a mess of
| "AppData" (apparently a normal directory) and "Application
| Data" (not accessible). I presume the first is an alias for
| the second; _but the second should be invisible_ if it 's not
| accessible (there are other directories like this).
|
| This started with Win7. Then they stopped abruptly, but never
| reverted these aborted changes. It's as if there's nobody in
| charge. My guess is that forcing Microsoft accounts,
| "instrumentation", and failed attempts to hegemonize mobile
| were prioritized over fixing what they'd broken.
|
| NT4 was a reasonable OS, with a rotten commandline. Nothing
| they've shipped since has come close.
| whoopdedo wrote:
| "Application Data" and "Program Files" were chosen for
| Windows 95 as a safety valve for programs that were
| upgraded to work with long files but might still be making
| assumptions such as filenames won't have a space. It would
| cause them to fail early so those bugs could be fixed.
|
| But it also made the 250 character path limit much easier
| to reach. When the NT unification happened with 2000/XP the
| shorter AppData was used with "Application Data" remaining
| as a junction point to the roaming profile for
| compatibility.
| amluto wrote:
| It's like how Windows seems to have at least four different
| control panels now. There's whatever comes up if you search
| for, say, "user accounts". There's the actual Control
| Panel. There's MMC. And there's the group policy editor.
| (Maybe that last one gets a pass.)
|
| And all of these partially duplicate functionality. Want to
| change the password of a different user account? You can't
| do it from the user account panel - you can only do it from
| the _other_ user account panel.
| userbinator wrote:
| _And there's the group policy editor. (Maybe that last
| one gets a pass.)_
|
| I've always joked that the gpedit.msc is where the _real_
| settings are. It 's one of the pieces that has stayed the
| same (and even been added to) while all the other parts
| are gradually dumbed-down and becoming less useful.
| rejectfinite wrote:
| MMC and Group policy do way more than user accounts.
|
| But yes it is a mess and only as an IT person I can
| somewhat make sense of when to use the modern Settings -
| Accounts, Control Panel users, MMC or sysdm.cpl
| lazide wrote:
| Same half baked changes. It was too time consuming to
| change everything, so they only changed surface level
| stuff that 'normal' users need.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| ApplicationData can store data shared by all users for an
| application to avoid duplicating for each user in their app
| data and such
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Recuva is a great freeware tool to restore files.
| Thaxll wrote:
| Once you have a SSD you can't get back deleted files.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| I've recovered deleted files from an SSD before.
| Thaxll wrote:
| It must have ben some times ago, basically SSD / OS in the
| last 6 years will TRIM by default which make recovery
| impossible.
| petercooper wrote:
| I didn't know that. I'm (probably irrationally) paranoid
| enough about the potential recovery of data that I store
| all my old laptops in an increasingly tottering tower in
| the garage (though technically they should have been
| encrypted as well.) If there is 0% chance of data
| recovery, I should probably look into selling them..
| laborat wrote:
| Only after the volume has been trimmed, which by default
| happens only once a week in Windows, IIRC.
| Thaxll wrote:
| No, the TRIM happen the moment you delete the file.
| lazide wrote:
| Not anymore on windows or Linux. It tends to cause wear
| issues on many SSDs
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I once recovered most of my pictures with https://sleuthkit.org/
| fortran77 wrote:
| There really shouldn't be any problem! Disk drives on _any_
| operating system can fail at any time. All they have to do is
| simply restore from their backups.
|
| Shame on Hacker News for doing this juvenile "Mico$oft WINDOWS
| BAD" crap. It's boring and stupid.
| jhoechtl wrote:
| Well the mistake was to move files first place. Should have done
| a copy first, check if everything is ok and then delete.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Huh? Assuming they was actually no warning, I doubt any of us
| would _reboot_ before the check in that sort of process.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| You're right of course, but this is a man in his 70s who didn't
| want to bother me again to fix his old laptop.
| ComodoHacker wrote:
| > Windows would drop them into a temporary user profile without
| dire warnings about its transience.
|
| I'm sure there was some warning. But you know, users don't read
| messages...
| nazgulsenpai wrote:
| Not that this fixes your immediate problem but just an FYI for
| anyone who might be in a similar situation in the future, in the
| 10+ years I've been in IT I've used the free ForensIT Profwiz,
| Transwiz and Defprof for any of these weird profile issues with
| success.
|
| Not affiliated in any way, just a sporadic user.
|
| https://www.forensit.com/
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Back when I did Windows work I used their tools too, great
| quality!
| squarefoot wrote:
| Give TestDisk a try. Years ago I have been able to use it to
| recover almost all files from a unreadable disk coming fom a
| RAID1 mirror gone bonkers due to a faulty controller.
|
| https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
|
| edit: oh, I just read that you mentioned TestDisk. Yes, it can
| recover the directory structure, at least it did in my case.
| After using it you will likely see that some files have been
| duplicated with a suffix added, like document.doc and
| document.doc.xyz (can't recall the exact suffix) in the same
| directory. In that case you need to check which file has been
| fully recovered, and rename it if needed.
| jqbdwst wrote:
| TestDisk is a miraculous tool !
| raffraffraff wrote:
| TestDisk is cli-only. I decided to have a look at PhotoRec
| (created by the same folks as TestDisk). It has a handy QT
| gui. Unfortunately, the only option is to scan the disk for
| selected file types and dump them all into a chosen location.
| This loses folder structure, so years of files will all get
| blended. I'd prefer an undelete option that can target
| "C:\Users\TEMP\Documents" etc, but this might be asking too
| much. Gonna try TestDisk next..
| axiolite wrote:
| Testdisk is great when you need to recover a whole
| partition, but not nearly as capable and advanced when it
| comes to recovering deleted files.
|
| You'll do much better with purpose-build Windows undelete
| utilities. I've had good luck with freeundelete:
|
| https://www.officerecovery.com/freeundelete/
| sorenjan wrote:
| Recuva has worked well for me in the past, it has a
| "Restore folder structure" option in the settings.
|
| https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I would suggest to new people that you should make a
| backup raw disk image before you do any of these recovery
| methods if the death of your drive is imminent :) . If
| you're just trying. If you just accidently deleted a file
| then you'll probably be okay :) . ddrescue is pretty good
| at making backup images where dd will give up.
| [deleted]
| Victerius wrote:
| > Windows couldn't use their user profile because it was
| corrupted
|
| So this is the source of the problem. How does it happen?
| jeroenhd wrote:
| In my experience, unexpected power loss qnd bluescreens are the
| most common cause for these problems. Even Windows 7 was pretty
| good at keeping their system files consistent enough to be auto
| recovered.
| pxeboot wrote:
| A corrupt ntuser.dat file or profile permissions issue can
| trigger a temporary profile.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| I don't know yet. I'm currently creating a bit-copy of the disk
| using `dd`, and will start investigating the copy. So far, no
| disk errors.
| 0x53 wrote:
| Was going to make sure you did this. There is a high chance
| you will be able to get a lot of the files back.
|
| You can use autopsy which is open source to carve for files.
| Or you might be able to use binwalk.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| I got good results with photorec. Despit its name, it can
| recover other file types too. Beware: It takes ages, and
| finds absolutely everything, including e.g. the browser
| cache.
| angry_octet wrote:
| This unfortunately highlights a key forensics requirement: don't
| touch the computer.
|
| Don't turn it on, don't turn it off, don't login/logout. Ideally
| keep the wifi router turned on, but disconnect it from upstream
| internet.
|
| It's very hard to get people to follow this of course but it's
| critical, especially now FDE is becoming more common. In the
| extreme case you can leave it on until you can cause an exploit
| remotely or are ready to immerse it in liquid nitrogen and
| extract the FDE keys from RAM. There are tools (wiebetech.com)
| for moving plugged in computers onto battery power if you can't
| work in situ or can't risk a grid outage.
| DerekBickerton wrote:
| This. To be honest, I think it's a miracle that my machine
| boots at all. Most people take it for granted, but I cherish
| each day it boots and I don't have to do a clean install
| because something breaks (typically some bizarre edge case
| scenario unique to Windows that only breaks on _my_ machine).
| There is the old saying: if it works, don 't try to fix it.
| pxeboot wrote:
| Temporary profiles have been a feature on Windows for many years.
| Likely intended as a way to login when a roaming profile isn't
| available on the network, not something a home user would care
| about.
| dmfdmf wrote:
| Win7 had an occassional timing issue where it would try to start
| before the profile could be read so it would boot to a temp
| profile. The main symptom is that all the user's files and
| desktop icons were gone. I would just have them reboot then it
| would be fine but it would need a tuneup, chkdsk, delete tmps,
| etc. as long as the drive wasn't really old. It used to be more
| common before the move to SSDs instead of HDDs but a Win7
| computer's drive is probably really old, so yes, time for a new
| PC.
|
| In this case the deleted files would have to recovered. I
| recently use Easus Data Recovery Wizard and was able to restore a
| lot of files for a client who's photo storage drive crashed. It
| would be best to pull the drive and do the recovery on another
| computer. I think the free tool allows up to 2GBs of data
| recovery but in this case the client had 100's of GBs so he paid
| for a 30 day license for $65.
| Dwedit wrote:
| Just don't use your user profile directory at all. If you really
| want to, replace the directories with Junction Points that point
| elsewhere. Then if your User Profile gets deleted, nothing will
| happen to the files.
| userbinator wrote:
| _If you really want to, replace the directories with Junction
| Points that point elsewhere._
|
| After https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18189139 , I don't
| think I want the OS to know where else I'm storing my files.
| StuckDuck wrote:
| > I was frankly astonished that Windows would drop them into a
| temporary user profile without dire warnings about its transience
|
| Does it? I recall using Windows 7 and being dropped into ~TEMP
| sometimes, but I was warned with a notification.
| bendiksolheim wrote:
| This is probably not at all intuitive to the regular Windows
| user, my parents would never understand the implications of
| this.
| wolrah wrote:
| > This is probably not at all intuitive to the regular
| Windows user, my parents would never understand the
| implications of this
|
| The trick here is how do we solve this other than further
| user education? When the user profile folder is unusable for
| some reason you either have to do this or just refuse login.
| Neither are good answers, but this one is better as long as
| you understand what the system's doing.
|
| If one doesn't know what the system's doing and isn't
| interested in trying to understand it I don't see a way to
| avoid this issue.
| leni536 wrote:
| How the hell did they have read + _write_ access from the
| temporary profile to the old one? Shouldn 't the tenporary
| profile belong to a distinct, temporary user account?
|
| Or the move opration immediately prompted for admin
| authorisation, and they just clicked through that? (not
| suggesting that these prompts are in any way useful for the
| average user)
| cesarb wrote:
| > When the user profile folder is unusable for some reason
| you either have to do this or just refuse login. Neither
| are good answers, but this one is better as long as you
| understand what the system's doing.
|
| As this whole discussion shows, no, this one is worse since
| it can easily lead to data loss. A third option, however,
| would be to do this _but not erase the profile on logout_.
| bscphil wrote:
| Or an even better fourth option: the warning message
| literally says "you cannot access your files".
| https://i.imgur.com/6jk6imp.png
|
| That is apparently false because the user _did_ access
| their files and dragged them into the temp profile.
|
| Either that should be literally true (a completely broken
| profile is a bad problem that needs help from a competent
| tech support person) or the profile should at least be
| made read-only until the entire profile is deleted. That
| way they could copy the files into the temp folder, but
| not lose anything (other than changes) after logging out.
|
| Also, the warning should be more obviously "fatal", not
| something to be clicked through. E.g. replace the desktop
| background with a black screen and put the warning text
| in red on it.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I see this attitude a lot, and it drives me a little crazy.
| All the conversations I've heard between developers and
| project managers immediately spring into my head. "But what
| if X happens", "Well, we showed them a message about it.
| There's nothing else we can do." This only makes sense for
| confirmations ("Leave this page? You'll lose your work."),
| and only sometimes. In most other cases, it's just an
| excuse to keep things simple for developers. Software can
| do _anything you want_ , especially if you own the stack in
| question - you just have to care enough to design and
| pursue it. There is _always_ an at-least-pretty-decent UX
| answer to _any_ problem. In this case, some off-the-top-of-
| my-head possibilities are simply disabling writes, or
| showing a message with better wording _at write time_ in
| Explorer, e.g. "This file will be deleted . . .". If a
| designer takes the time to think about it, they could come
| up many more, perhaps better, possibilities.
|
| Hell, even just changing the terrible wording on the
| notification (and putting it somewhere much less ignorable)
| would be a step forward. E.g. "Your files have been
| temporarily moved to X. Any files you place in My
| Documents, My Pictures (etc) will be deleted when you log
| off or turn off your computer.").
| timbit42 wrote:
| No one reads notifications. They just click OK so they can get
| to the desktop.
| bryan_w wrote:
| They'll read it next time, most likely. This is how people
| learn.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| Someone in their 70s just blames "that stupid old laptop"
| that their brother told them to replace last year, but they
| wouldn't listen. The underlying cause is never found, the
| pop-up message wasn't read. The laptop is just an
| _asshole_. They 'll go to the computer store and buy a
| different laptop that isn't an asshole.
| raffraffraff wrote:
| So I Googled this to see what they were shown...
|
| https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/my-pro...
|
| A notification in the status bar, along with their other 10+
| notifications about Skype, printers, antivirus etc. They didn't
| see it, or if they did see it, didn't understand the
| implications. The horrible thing is that they didn't want to
| bother me with it, and tried to solve the issue themselves :(
| Someone wrote:
| On top of that, the message says (emphasis added) _"files
| CREATED in this profile will be deleted when you log off"_.
| In this case, the user didn't CREATE files; they MOVED them.
|
| I also doubt the typical user will know that _profile_ is
| shorthand for _user profile_ and know what that is.
|
| End result: because of corruption of some data the user
| likely is only remotely interested in, all data they were
| interested in got deleted.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| The Windows 10 one (which, NB, is from 7+ years ago) says
| "any changes you make will be lost" and doesn't mention
| "profile":
|
| https://www.windowsphoneinfo.com/attachments/97fdf7d3-6fca-
| 4...
| mike256 wrote:
| I don't think this makes it any better. Imho "any changes
| you make will be lost" would mean to move the files back
| to where they were before and not delete them.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| >(This wasn't obvious to the user because Explorer hides the
| 'detail' of the file path and simply shows the username)
|
| I hate how Explorer tries to be clever with the Documents etc
| folders but it just makes it obtuse. Like if I open Documents
| from the side bar and press Up Directory I end up in My Computer
| not my home folder.
| naikrovek wrote:
| > frankly astonished that Windows would drop them into a
| temporary user profile without dire warnings about its
| transience.
|
| windows didn't drop them into a temporary user profile; the user
| did that.
|
| windows assumes that you know what you're doing when you move
| files around. everyone loses their minds when it doesn't make
| this assumption.
| detaro wrote:
| How did the user actively drop themselves into a temporary user
| profile?
| dataflow wrote:
| Try Recuva, IsoBuster, etc.
|
| And take an image before booting the disk.
| anvic wrote:
| You probably received the following notification but you paid no
| attention to it:
|
| https://techcult.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Fix-Youve-be...
| userbinator wrote:
| "Please see the ev"
|
| WTF. That looks really amateurish. Why couldn't they make the
| notification window larger?
| hoistbypetard wrote:
| Wow, that's way too subtle. Explorer should say something scary
| when you try to move files into that area from another part of
| the disk.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| Since the notification area, like on mobile, tends to become
| full of garbage, users rightfully do not expect it to be a
| place where hyper-critical information like this will appear,
| or at least not using the same format. Further, this wording is
| inadequate. The vast majority of people would reasonably not
| understand that dragging your pictures back to the My Pictures
| folder, where they already were moments ago, is what the
| message means by "creating files in this profile". Further
| still, there's no reason for Windows to choose not to behave in
| a reasonable way in this scenario (e.g. prevent writes to the
| profile, or show a dialogue when you try to write using
| Explorer, saying "if you do this, the files will be deleted").
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Yeah, that's definitively not enough notification.
|
| When you have a similar problem on Linux, and you home is
| inaccessible or read-only, you get an almost screen-sized
| dialog, no desktop background (something hard to replicate on
| your settings), and the system theme (that is probably
| different from your DE's default).
| fsckboy wrote:
| when my home is not available, my linux returns to the login
| screen so fast I can't tell anything happened. after a few
| stabs at that I ctrl-alt-pop a console tty to see what it
| says. I've created an additional wheel user with $HOME in the
| root just so I have a place to log in and and look around.
|
| of course it's always been the unix way to be strong-silent
| without have a lot of "informative" message clutter, so I'm
| generally sad to see it friendlied up.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| You will on current supported Windows versions as well:
|
| https://www.windowsphoneinfo.com/attachments/97fdf7d3-6fca-4.
| ..
|
| Windows 7 left extended support two and a half years ago,
| mainstream support seven years ago, and hasn't been in
| development for eleven years. (Like commenting from Windows
| XP in 2001 that Windows 3.11 in 1993 had an unhelpful dialog
| box).
| userbinator wrote:
| The picture of the notification there in the original
| comment is from Windows 10.
| seqizz wrote:
| I recovered a lot with RMF, not sure if it still has the vibe
| though, that was a decade ago.
|
| [link] https://getdata.com/recovermyfiles/
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