Is there any reason why My Documents are deleted upon installation of the OS everytime I re-install it? It was really bad under Windows Server 2003 because I had to re-install it almost weekly and the 2008 flavour seems to be much more robust, however this change from how it used to behave is not very welcome at all for where I sit.

Are you doing a repair or a re-install? When doing a reinstall all user-centric information will be deleted, when doing a repair all information is kept but system files are repaired.

I must say I have never really tried to do a repair either from CDROM or otherwise, however I don't really see why user files need to be deleted when they could just be appended in the same way that prior window system files are. I think this makes sense and the change as it currently stands will only serve to be vexatious to the many who use Microsoft Plaforms in the future.

A qualified guess is that since that the profiles are GUID-based you'll get new GUIDS on reinstall, upon which the old folders are deleted. Compare it to a fileserver where you have a folder with rights for one user, delete that user from AD, create a new one with the same username and that user will not have access to the folder because the SID has changed. "This behaviour is by design" one could say.

I understand but it's the same as the SAS issue in that remote access always takes precedence. It's a pity really because this is the best OS I've ever used and now I'm not game to even put my files into the "My Documents" folder anymore because the mode I want to run the system in simply does not exist.

And how do you want to run the system? I still have a pre beta-2 running that I haven't reinstalled once, so why the number of re-installs? Could you please clarify what you want to do maybe we can find a solution?

I don't have a problem with re-installing the system because after all I'm not running something like Linux Core or anything like that and as computers become faster it won't matter so long as settings can be restored, as well as programs and user files, so by the time the desktop appears everything is there. That is the future to me.

Install your system the way you want it, including software. Do a full system backup. That will allow you to restore your computer complete with all your software. Then backup your files separately. That would shorten your reinstall time.

Hi Joachim, Thanks for your reply. That is the way I know I will have to go since the Windows Paradigm has now changed. I do appreciate the new way of doing things especially all of the great enhancements to Explorer itself; they certainly make me want to pour scorn on how it was done before, however I'd really appreciate having some kind of local systemtoolset (MMC) which would enable me to backup user files individually to DVDROM for example without having to arbitrarily use a program or even Windows Explorer as it were. One more problem I have which is very annoying for me, most of the time the only thing that works on the taskbark is the start button itself, no matter how many times I reset it. Are you aware of anything happening like this? Thank you.

No, haven't seen anything like it. You could post another question about that separately if you want to, maybe someone else has seen it? Please do that ina new thread in that case

Why would it be that I cannot navigate the shortcuts in the User folder of my windows server 2008 installation, when I'm the default administrator and there is no other account on the machine I'm using?

I really miss My Documents on my desktop how do I get them back?