the tao of OS upgrades

[sistawendy]

I'd like to be able to use remote desktop from my new computer into work, which means I needed to upgrade to a release of Vista that is higher than Home Premium. All was hunky dory until I logged in as me and got the message, "Preparing your desktop."

That's a euphemism for wiping your files, apparently unrecoverably.

OK, wiping mine are OK, because I have copies of most of them on the laptop and can download & regenerate the rest. The trouble is, Nibs' files got wiped in a similar fashion. No prob: I back her up daily to flash drives. (Yeah, I should have made a backup right before I upgraded, but didn't.)

Prob: unbeknownst to me, the last backup that actually ran was early Friday morning.
Bigger prob: she did an important interview later that day.
Punch line: remote desktop still doesn't work.

Yes, sure, I could have prevented this, but a warning or a recovery option would have been nice. All my apps and many of my settings made it through the upgrade unscathed. Why not my files somewhere?

Small yay: according to SETI@Home, I've crunched more numbers for them in the last month than I did in the previous eight years. That's a hundred-fold increase in compute power.

Death, taxes, and data loss.

Comments

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Lord above. "Preparing" your desktop?!? Why should a remote desktop program even NEED to erase any files? Buh.

Kinda makes you wish you could find the programmer responsible and "prepare" his face.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Why should a remote desktop program even NEED to erase any files? Buh.

Actually, it was the OS upgrade that wiped the files, but I think the same question still applies.

Kinda makes you wish you could find the programmer responsible and "prepare" his face.

I can get into his building now. He should fear me.

[darkmane.livejournal.com]

Check the Documents folder for a second one with the same username you have, it is probably the original and they created a second user account during the upgrade for some stupid reason.

It will have all your data.

[butterflake.livejournal.com]

My dream this morning included hugs from you. It was lovely :)

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Aww! :)

[schmi.livejournal.com]

I think data loss is the most traumatic of the three. :P

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

On average, yes.

[smeehrrr.livejournal.com]

Take a look and see if you have a directory called "Windows.old" on the system volume. When you do an install onto a drive where there's already a Windows install, it moves a bunch of stuff there.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Will do. I looked for things like that, hidden or not, but I'll take any advice I can get.