Vista is ruining my life

[Lavabe]

I apologize to DA in advance for any evil anti-MS words that get thrown around in this thread.

I have to say that the latest stunt that Vista pulled has me VERY upset.

First, I have the auto updater on, and I wound up spending $12 extra yesterday because the download took up some obscene amount of space on this slow connection I have here. Once the download was complete, I saw that it was an update of Vista, with some new service pack. OK, fine. I ran it. It all updated and installed, minus two .dll's, the specifics of which I don't remember. Great. Here's what happened...

My desktop that had been lost for a week was suddenly found again. Outlook returned again. YAY!!

Bad news: the four desktop files that I had for presentations for Thursday and Friday are NOWHERE to be found. And I need them. I mean I NEED them.

Good news: NONE of my photos were lost or scrambled.

What can I do to find these former desktop files? Search isn't helping.

Thanks,
Lavabe

[DukePA]

This probably falls into the "too little, too late" category, but did you email the files to anyone? One thing I learned in PA school was to email really important papers, presentations, etc to myself on the off chance that my computer ate them.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Do a search for the file extension, and make sure you are looking in hidden and system files as well. Any update shouldn't delete personal files, but it is possible they've been hidden. (Although I've never heard of that either). I think the search function in Vista sucks, it is less than straight forward, so make sure you are looking everywhere for it. For future situations, get a thumb drive to back up docs to. You never know when your laptop might take a dump on you. (That's directed at everyone...I have to tell people at work all the time that they have lost everything, I hate doing that.)

[colchar]

Have you tried using System Restore?

Also, if you don't have a Gmail account, set one up and use it to email yourself copies of papers. I regularly email essays etc. to myself (both drafts and finished copies) because, no matter what happens to a computer, external hard-drive, etc. they will always be available in Gmail.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

For future situations, get a thumb drive to back up docs to. You never know when your laptop might take a dump on you. (That's directed at everyone...I have to tell people at work all the time that they have lost everything, I hate doing that.)

Backup backup backup!

For desktop users, I highly recommend Carbonite.com. For $54/year, it's automatic and easy - you don't have to remember to do the backup. It can be set to backup continuously, or just overnight when you aren't using it. If on auto, it works when the computer is idle, and doesn't slow you down when working or surfing the web. I say desktop users only because it it less likely you leave your laptop on when you're not using it, but it would work for laptops too if you do. When my desktop failed 3 months ago and bought this one, I had every file, every picture reloaded the day after I got this up and running. Can't beat it!

[Lavabe]

Do a search for the file extension, and make sure you are looking in hidden and system files as well. Any update shouldn't delete personal files, but it is possible they've been hidden. (Although I've never heard of that either). I think the search function in Vista sucks, it is less than straight forward, so make sure you are looking everywhere for it. For future situations, get a thumb drive to back up docs to. You never know when your laptop might take a dump on you. (That's directed at everyone...I have to tell people at work all the time that they have lost everything, I hate doing that.)

That did it. For some strange reason, they got stored elsewhere, in windows\System32\config\systemprofile\+ some four other levels away.

Why? I have NO idea why... it's VISTA, that's why. Actually, I think it's worse than VISTA; I think it's VISTA SP2.

To answer the thumb drive save issue... I literally got done with the presentations 10 minutes before the start of everything on Friday, then got occupied with politics afterwards until ... the download started. The download took some 8 hours, while I slept and then some. I figured once it was done, I'd run it, then check files, then save 'em. WRONG MOVE. Save first, then do the rest.

MANY thanks for saving me loads of time and angst.
Cheers,
Lavabe

[CameronBornAndBred]

You're welcome, great to hear you got them back!

[YmoBeThere]

Vista has been much easier to deal with than I expected. It has it's quirks but definitely not the nightmare I was expecting based on other's comments.

[colchar]

Vista has been much easier to deal with than I expected. It has it's quirks but definitely not the nightmare I was expecting based on other's comments.

The earlier versions were probably terrible but I haven't had any real problems with it. There are a couple of things it does that I don't like and that cannot be changed but, overall, it has been fine.

[DevilAlumna]

Lavabe,

Sorry this happened to you! I would have been swearing up a storm at my Windows colleagues as well, if I'd lost documents of that importance at such a critical time. I'm glad you were able to dig them out of the system files. (That's a feature of Microsoft Office, to auto-save files in case of a system crash. Depending on what version you use, if you re-open the application, you will be prompted to recover the file.)

Out of curiosity, why didn't you just stop the update? Just because it starts downloading doesn't mean you have to let it finish, particularly if it's at a bad time (such as over a bad connection, or it's suggesting a Service Pack, and you just don't want it at the moment.)

FTR, I don't take it personally if folks have an issue with any Microsoft products - it's a company of 92,000 employees, so chances are, I didn't have anything to do with the product. ;)

[Lavabe]

Out of curiosity, why didn't you just stop the update? Just because it starts downloading doesn't mean you have to let it finish, particularly if it's at a bad time (such as over a bad connection, or it's suggesting a Service Pack, and you just don't want it at the moment.)

It's funny, but connection speed and quality is ALWAYS a problem. By the time I noticed that it was updating, it was 15% complete, and I thought it wouldn't take long. I was wrong. At that point, if you get that much of an update with this connection here, you get the rest. Also, the description of the update being vital made me think it was wise to get it done ASAP. I also thought that the update MIGHT be what I needed to get rid of the problem of the previous week, life without my normal Outlook.

To give you a feel for the connection speed and quality issue, I really can not handle the board over yonder, with all of its advertisements. It takes up valuable chunks of my 40MB/day quota with my ISP, Orange. PDF's take forever to download. I frequently have to reload facebook to enter it. From time to time, I even have issues getting the normal font and screen for this site.

But at least I have a better than normal connection for over here.
Cheers,
Lavabe

[DevilAlumna]

By the time I noticed that it was updating, it was 15% complete, and I thought it wouldn't take long. I was wrong.

A comic for when you get back to better bandwidth land:

http://xkcd.com/612/

[DukeUsul]

Out of curiosity, why didn't you just stop the update? Just because it starts downloading doesn't mean you have to let it finish, particularly if it's at a bad time (such as over a bad connection, or it's suggesting a Service Pack, and you just don't want it at the moment.)

It's funny, but connection speed and quality is ALWAYS a problem. By the time I noticed that it was updating, it was 15% complete, and I thought it wouldn't take long. I was wrong. At that point, if you get that much of an update with this connection here, you get the rest. Also, the description of the update being vital made me think it was wise to get it done ASAP. I also thought that the update MIGHT be what I needed to get rid of the problem of the previous week, life without my normal Outlook.

To give you a feel for the connection speed and quality issue, I really can not handle the board over yonder, with all of its advertisements. It takes up valuable chunks of my 40MB/day quota with my ISP, Orange. PDF's take forever to download. I frequently have to reload facebook to enter it. From time to time, I even have issues getting the normal font and screen for this site.

But at least I have a better than normal connection for over here.
Cheers,
Lavabe

You may want to install Firefox (if you have not already) and the Flashblock plug-in. It will prevent the big bandwidth-hogging Flash-based advertisements from being pulled down on every page you visit.