Restore Personal Files on Windows Vista

Many people have already jumped on the band-wagon and upgraded to Windows Vista. These people are the type of people who are either looking for something simple or something new in the world of technology. Upgraded your existing computer to Windows Vista is a much more popular way than just purchasing a new computer with Windows Vista already built in. This can, unfortunately, cause more issues. One issue that is easy to fix is that of restoring your personal files. These are the files you had BEFORE you upgraded to Windows Vista. You may have already noticed that once you upgrade, your system appears to be brand new. No saved folders, no old icons and no downloads.

Windows stores all your previous personal files into a folder called Windows.old. This is the folder you need to access if you want all your previous personal files back. To get to this folder go to your Windows start button and type drive:\windows.old. After searching click the windows.old folder that is in the Programs List. There should be 3 listings if you are upgrading from Windows XP. These folsders are the Documents & Settings folder, Windows folder and Program Files folder. Most likely, all of your personal files were stored in teh Documents & Settings folder. Windows XP does not usually store them into the Windows or Program Files folder for when you upgrade to Windows Vista. The Documents & Settings folder creates a seperate folder for each user of the computer. To demonstrate, if there were 2 users the folders would be as follows: drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\Administrator and  drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName. You would need to open each folder to retrieve the data fully from your old system.

There are usually about 6 folders within each user's Documents & Settings folder. The Start Menu, Cookies and User Data folders basically do not contain vital information. The folders you want to look out for are the My Documents, Favorites and Desktop. These are the 3 that contain the most valuable, keepsake information on your computer.

If you stored data, folders, important shortcuts on your computer you can restore them onto your Windows Vista system by right-clicking the Desktop folder, full labeled drive:\Windows.old\Documents and Settings\UserName\Desktop,  and select Cut. Close all the opened windows and right-click a blank area on your desktop to select Paste. The folder will then appear as a regular icon on your desktop that you can open, extract and do other things with.

The steps are slightly different with the My Documents folder. You search for it, select it, right-click and choose Cut the same way as you do with the Desktop folder. Then, instead of going to your desktop, go to your Start Button and select Documents. Right click on Documents and select Paste.

You may wish to log on as each user to restore files from the individual user folders. Also, make sure you do not delete the Windows.old folder if there is still important data remaining in it.