Hi, A few months ago, I had Windows Vista and caught the blue screen of death. I went to Geek Squad and they [after saving my old files] wiped my hard drive and loaded it with Windows 7. They saved my files in a folder called GS Backup. Windows 7 is now working wonderfully, however, in the GS Backup folder, there is a folder called AppData that is rather large (like 4 or five gigs). I was wondering if this folder is necessary any more. Can i safely delete it and have no side effects from Windows 7 even though when i tried to delete it, a little window appeared saying that windows may not run properly without this file? Can I just delete it since such a folder was only in use when i had windows vista? Thanks

Hi Johan, Application specific data plus other customization settings are stored under the AppData folder. I'd simply burn the AppData folder to a CD/DVD (or copy to a flash drive) before deleting it, just in case you need to acquire data from there in future. Before that, make sure that the AppData folder of your user profile under the existing Windows installation is not accidentally mapped to the AppData folder within the GS Backup folder. To find that type "%APPDATA% in STart Search box and see which folder it's linked to. Ramesh Srinivasan | The Winhelponline Blog Microsoft MVP, Windows Desktop Experience

Mr. Srinivasan, Thank you so much for your response and clarifications. I did what you said and found that the AppData folder for my current Windows system is located in a separate location than the one in the GS Backup folder. Also, all of the files in the AppData folder located in the GS Backup show that they were last modified and used on February 6th, which is the day that geek squad created my backup folder and thus i want to believe that that AppData folder has not been in use since then. Thanks again.

You're welcome Johan. You may clear it after backup it up to a suitable location.Ramesh Srinivasan | The Winhelponline Blog Microsoft MVP, Windows Desktop Experience