A few days ago one of my clients called me with some strange problems. Suddenly many of her files disappeared from her computer. None of the files seemed to be related. She was missing a few Microsoft Word documents, some photos and her genealogy.
After looking around and doing several searches she happened to mention that she used to have a folder on her desktop called "Old Desktop Files." It was a folder with files that she had on an old computer.
Instantly I figured out what was going on. I looked in her Word and PAF under the File menu and noticed that all of the missing files had been in that missing folder.
I had looked in her recycle bin for the missing individual files and they weren't there, but when I knew to look for the entire folder it was all there in the recycle bin.
She was relieved that everything could be recovered. I gave her two short lectures. Lecture 1 was entitiled Always Backup Your Important Data on a Flash Drive or CD and the other was Never Put Data Files or Folders on Your Desktop.
To make a shortcut on the desktop just find any folder, file or shortcut in My Computer then hold the right mouse button down while dragging the icon to the desktop. Choose "Create Shortcut."
All my life I have been a very happy Windows user. Currently I have Windows XP. I’ve never had problems keeping files or folders on my desktop. I know I can rely on my machine to keep all my files where I put them. So I’d like to know, those of you who have had unexpected deletions from your desktop, are you using a Macintosh OS? Because if you’re using Windows, then I’d really suggest you do a virus/spyware check on your system because it certainly doesn’t sound right to me that without your consent, the computer simply deletes your stuff from the desktop.
Placing files on your desktop not only slows up your machine, but also if a hard disk error were to happen all your desktop files would potentially be lost as they are not saved to your hard disk.
The desktop is not for saving files, it is for shortcut icons and temporary files that will be removed after a short period of time.
In short.. DON’T PUT FILES ON YOUR DESKTOP.
I agree with you that the desktop is kind of a crazy place to save important information, but it IS just a folder on your computer and acts no different than any other folder and is at no greater risk for data loss than any other folder.
People people people. FILES DO NOT DELETE THEMSELVES! WINDOWS WILL NOT JUST DELETE YOUR FILES! Either you have SPYWARE, MALWARE, other VIRUSES, or annoying PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE! If you have none of those, then you are a MORON! It is YOUR FAULT for deleting YOUR OWN FILES!!! I put tonnes of files on my desktop. I consider 4 or 5 columns (on 1024×768 resolution) to be a SMALL amount of icons! Most of them are shortcuts, and some are files! That’s OK! Files I wish to access on the go, for ease-of-use! That is the point of a desktop, SO YOU CAN SEE IT RIGHT THERE! Sure, I can understand wanting a zen desktop with some cool photo for your wallpaper and 1 icon, but to me that is just not practical. One of the wonders of windows is the ease with which you can simply click and drag files! You don’t need to open a shortcut to a folder in my documents to see your actual files when you can do it right there with your cool wallpaper instead of a plain white and yellow folder etc. Sure, it’s good to be safe, and I do backup my most precious files, but other than that, I don’t. It’s just not practical. I use my hard drive, because it has space, it is secure, I have lots of files, and most importantly, I don’t want to spend 5 minutes navigating through folders to try and find one word document. I won’t use my desktop as a permanent spot for all of my files, because I have so many I organize them into folders, but Firefox saves files to the desktop for a reason. They’re right there in front of you!
The desktop is used for quick access to ANYTHING! It’s not a shortcut only zone!
Comments are closed.