Windows 7 deleting files
Can anyone tell me what has happened here? All my music files were deleted by Windows 7. I got them back, but what's going on??? I just upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista, in an attempt to get Media Center TV to work, and when I went to play music yesterday, (using Logitech Squeezebox)), all my music files had gone - all of them. The directory structure was still there, and most folders still had the desktop.ini file in, but NO MP3/FLAC/folder.jpg files etc. HELP!! I discovered a new option called Restore Files, (or something like that), which got them back, and I see I'm not alone, (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/thread/caa965fe-1546-4dd2-bb37-656ac2eed1de). But hey, this is a serious problem! I didn't delete these files - I think that Media Center did; there were loads of restore points (8 or 10) all within minutes of each other from the time when I was trying to get Media Center to work. At this time I (inadvertently) went to the music option and MCE started to scan the music folders. I really don't like the damage MCE does to my library, so I don't use MCE for music, but this time it has deleted everything - including .FLAC files, which I don't think it understands. What's important is, why has Windows done this? And what can I do to prevent it happening again? Thanks!
March 31st, 2010 4:22pm

I have Vista and Windows 7 at home. In my last upgrade, it did not experience this issue but at the same time I didn't have a lot of music on my laptop. It sounds that something went wrong during the upgrade process and truly, I feel your pain. As an IT admin, I have learned just through experience that, no matter how insignificant an upgrade can be, always keep a backup on a separate drive. On my Windows 7, I store all my music on a USB drive just in case. I have had several crashes on my system and my last BSOD, I had to re-install everything. Luckily, I keep a backup all the time. -Esteban"There's a time and place for that. The time is... Never. You can figure out the place on your own".
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March 31st, 2010 5:18pm

We have not encounter such behaviors in our test computers. The issue may be caused by your special software environment. A possible cause is antivirus or antispyware. You may temproary diasble them and check the result. If the issue persists, you may try to find which program deleted the files first. 1. Click Start, enter GPedit.msc in the Start Search box. 2. Open the following branch. Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Audit Security 3. Enable the following policies: Audit account logon eventsAudit object access 4. Open Windows Explorer, open the folder C:\Users\[username]. 5. Right click the folder “Desktop”, choose Properties->Security. Click the Advanced button.6. Click the Auditing tab. Click Continue. 7. Click Add. Then click Advanced. 8. Click the button Find Now. 9. Wait for the process finishes. Then from the users list add the following users. ANONYMOUS LOGONBATCHCREATOR OWNEREveryone GuestsLOCAL SERVICENETWORKNETWORK SERVICESERVICESYSTEM 10. After selecting each user, choose “Delete” and “Delete subfolders and files” as the auditing entries. If you would like to check which account was trying to remove items in the folder, please open Event Viewer, check the Windows Logs\Security Log for detail information. You may backup these files then enable file audit and monitor. Arthur Xie - MSFT
April 2nd, 2010 9:30am

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