Last week I said that I would write about Robin of Harrisonburg’s second question. Basically, that is why should you keep all of your files in the “My Documents” (“Documents” in Vista) folder?
One reason is for organization. If they are there you know where to find them. Another reason and possibly even more importantly is that if you ever have a hard drive crash it would be good. It has happened to yours truly several times. And a friend had it happen recently to them.
When a technician has the dying drive up and running their most important task is to retrieve the owners’ important files. This is a standard procedure.
When the drive is going you quickly take all of the users “data” files and save them to a new hard drive. That way you have all of your tax-returns, business letters, leases, rental agreements, financial statements, etc. on your new drive.
Get the picture? This is all of that important documentation that you will most likely need to use after the old drive is gone.
My friend’s problems started when he didn’t know exactly where he had stored all of the “essential” documents. He knew they were somewhere on their computer but not exactly where. Their 1996-03 tax returns were in the “My Documents” folder (where they should be), but the ones from 2003-2007 were somewhere else. But he couldn’t remember where!?!? He lost a lot of their family’s data due to the fact that the repair technician could not find it all…the user didn’t know where to tell them to look. History…poof…gone…up-in-smoke…nada!
You know Bill Gates and his buddies don’t always do the absolute best in their software design (although some of us would tend to differ) but “My Documents” was a stroke of genius. Your “My Documents” folder is where you should keep all of the important data that you have on your computer.
After looking at the above case study you should realize why. If your computer’s hard drive goes kaput, the person trying to fix it will know where to find all the important data and rescue it for you. It is just that simple. You can load up the folder with an almost unlimited amount of sub-folders and files, so size isn’t a consideration.
Also, if you ever have to use “System Restore” to bring back your computer to a previous point in time, “My Documents” items are treated with tender loving care. “System Restore” allows your computer to be set back to a previous time before a “bad” program was installed on your computer causing tribulation. When restoring your system the “My Documents” folder is left alone so that none of the files in it are damaged.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 at 7:39 am and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
