Windows 10: Backup Disaster: Windows Changing Folder Names

Thanks. Your caution is very appropriate. I thought my Favorites on my Desktop was just a shortcut. Normally when you delete a short cut you get a popup saying something like "Are you sure you want to delete this shortcut?" If I had been moving fast I might have deleted the full folder, but I noticed that MS didn't reference the shortcut so I stopped and checked. Sure enough it was the actual folder of items.

I think that I can straighten this out by somehow reorganizing my folders, but I'll wait to see if I get specific advice from people who, unlike me, actually know what they are doing.

 

Hi, have you tried what I suggested? And have you ever used the Locate tab? Please let me know the exact result. Thanks.

 

dalchina,

Yes, I responded above with my results of your suggestions. Here is what I said:
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"Pictures, Documents, Favorites and Links are not there.

Favorites is on my Desktop. Clicking on properties, location is C:Users/Desktop

But when I go to C:Users, I see Documents. Clicking on Documents leads me to the list above except that Favorites is under Desktop.

Somehow the hierarchy of folders has gotten messed up. This must have happened when I was trying to eliminate the clutter of W10 Folders on the Desktop and in ThisPC. Maybe I just need to start moving stuff around."
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My initial attempt at reorganizing the folder hierarchy was just using the Location tab. That didn't work as indicated above. I thought before I started trying something else I would wait to see if there were any specific instructions for doing so. The good news is thanks to you and others I've got a sense of what the problem is.

 

Ok, it's probably sthg to do with how you used the Location tab.

I was referring to post #11:
You said Documents and Pictures were not found, so create those folders.
Now post a screenshot of your
%userprofile%
folder.
(Note- inspect the icons for those folders- are they correct?)
Also please post a screenshot of your folders on D: showing the ones we're interested in (the icons may be helpful).

What happens now when you put
%USERPROFILE%\Documents
%USERPROFILE%\Pictures
in the explorer address bar?

Anyway, I'll leave it with you. There's no automatic way to put your folders and contents back in a rational way, unless for example you use disk imaging (which everyone should, especially given Win 10's relative fragility for a good number).

You could then (e.g.)-
restore the image if recent enough
or
recreate the folder structure in the conventional locations and copy in your data from either your current folders or from the disk image if you needed to use a backup source.

 

dalchina,

Thanks. Post 12 was my response to your post 11*Smile

As noted above, Documents exists, just not where it's supposed to be. I am on the road a couple of days but will create Pictures and follow your other directions when I get back.

 

dalchina,

Finally had time to work on these issues.

• D: drive is OK at this time. Just my stuff as it should be in it.
• As you suggested, I created Pictures and Documents in C: User/Jim. I copied a screen shot of %userprofile% to a word document but don't see how to attach it. In any case all the folders that you listed above are there.
• When I do the %userprofile% for Documents and Pictures they now show up and are empty, as they should be.

I still have a problem in that when I go to save a PDF file W10 wants to save it in C:Windows/System32 (before it opened Favorites to save PDFs). I have no idea why this is. Word documents go to D: Documents as they should. The other open switch for me at this point is what happens the next time there is W10 update. Hopefully nothing, but I'll have to wait and see.

Anyway, thank yo so much for your time and guidance on this.

 

Here we go again. There was a W10 update. My Photos folder on my D Drive was renamed Pictures. This caused my automatic backup to fail because it couldn't find Photos. Remember, all the folders on my D Drive are my personal data folders. There is nothing related to the operating system. My Documents folder on my D Drive appears untouched, however:

The update also renamed my Favorites folder Documents, so the Favorites folder was not backed up either.
FWIW, the Favorites folder that was renamed Documents is on the C Drive under Users>Jim. There is also another folder named Documents and one named Pictures in the same location, which are empty as they should be. (see attached screen shot).

The problem lies in the "default" location of these folders. For some reason the default location of my Photos folder is C:/Users/ Pictures while the default location for my Favorites folder is C/users/Documents. apparently whenever there is an update, it puts them in these "default" locations.

The question is how did these become the default locations and how can I stop this?