Windows 10: Appdata not showing up in file explorer.

I have recently changed to using a Microsoft account on my computer instead of a local account however it seems to have messed with my appdata I can not see any of it and can only find it by searching for it I've tried looking things up to fix this to no avail so I'll post this and any help or fixes I'll greatly appreciate. I tried putting in screenshots but it just keeps saying it failed.

:)

 

"This file can't be previewed" problem in explorer

Hi Deborah,

For us to provide an accurate resolution, kindly elaborate the issue by answering the questions listed below:

• Since when have you been experiencing this issue?
• Were there any changes on your PC before this happened like software or updates installed?

For initial troubleshooting, we suggest that you follow the steps listed below:

• Open File Explorer.
• Access this link
  
  C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
• Delete all the files.
• After deleting the files kindly try and see if there's a thumbnail preview of your files.

We're looking forward to your response.

 

Excel shows a file inside AppData, but Explorer does not... why?

Well, if I 'Copy path to Clipboad' from Recent in Excel, I get this:

C:\Users\jstro\AppData\john_silly.xlsm

If I then paste that entire path into an Explorer window, it doesn't show me
any of that folder... it just waits for me to hit "Enter", at which point - yes - it dutifully finds and opens that file.

But here's the important thing:

If I remove the file name itself from the above path, and enter THIS into Explorer:

C:\Users\jstro\AppData\

Then, no it does not see it.

In a nutshell, the entire path to the file itself does open the file via Excel. But the path to the
underlying folder still doesn't show that this file exists in Explorer.

 

Excel shows a file inside AppData, but Explorer does not... why?

As they say, a picture (or two) is worth lots of words. So here goes...

This is the file folder display I can see when viewing the AppData folder from within Excel (365):





As you can see, there is very clearly an Excel file in that folder (and Excel is still open, so there is also an Excel temp file shown).

This is the EXACT SAME folder, but this time viewed from normal Windows Explorer:





Note that the Excel file (and its associated temp file) are completely MISSING! What the heck?

Here is what I have tried so far to understand this:

• Ensure AppData has NO HIDDEN folder/file settings:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Check that the PATH used in those two dialogues are the EXACT same:
  
  PATH from within Excel = C:\Users\jstro\AppData
  
  PATH from Explorer = C:\Users\jstro\AppData
  
  Yup. they appear identical!
  
• Test this behavior in a folder OTHER than AppData:
  
  When I do the same test with a normal Documents\ folder or subfolder, the behavior works as you would expect (both Excel and Explorer see the same file). So it appears that this behavior is isolated to something weird happening in the AppData folder.

Beyond that, I am currently baffled. I have run this same test on a different PC (which happens to be running Win8 instead of Win10), and I do NOT see this odd AppData folder problem on that other PC. This problem of "where's my file?" seems related to AppData
and some setting in Win10 on this PC.

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks!