WARNING: WIN 7 Libraries

[kryton9]

I am posting this to tonight to hopefully help prevent anyone else from having a similar fiasco. I am running Windows 7 currently and was unaware of this feature. It might also exist in previous versions of Windows, not sure, as this has never happened to me before.

In Windows 7, You have now a listing that says Libraries when you click on the Start Button. There is a folder- Pictures, I assume it is like the old My Pictures in My Documents. Anyways, I was making textures and saving them there because it was so convenient. So my textures are created and stored in Pictures in Libraries, at some time in the last several weeks, I copied some of the textures I created to my projects folder I use for c++ development. Everything is fine. I wrote lots of code and had many test projects.

Today I went to make a quick idea sketch with Microsoft Paint, I saved it and noticed all of my c++ project folders, exes and stuff were also showing up in the Pictures Library. I figured in my haste one late night, I must have copied all the stuff over by accident. So I deleted everything I thought were accidental duplicate copies, only to find to my fright-- it deleted everything in my c++ projects folder at the same time.

After being shaken by the loss of weeks and weeks of work, I started looking into Pictures and Libraries, apparently it can bring content in from various places in the computer into one place. Somehow when I copied my textures over I must have or it might have automatically added my c++ projects folder to the Pictures Folder as a source for the library. Since I don't know how my c++ projects got added to it, I would recommend caution.

You can right-click on the Pictures or other Library Folder and go to properties. It shows folders you might have feeding that folder or if you want to add a new source. Anyways please be careful.

[danbaron]

In my opinion, Microsoft just does whatever it wants with Windows.

If you don't know about something, and you lose lots of data, too bad.

I have nothing good to say about Microsoft, Apple, etc.

[kryton9]

Since I looked into it more and am now aware of the feature, it is a neat feature to have. Just like any other Library Manager, I guess you have to learn it. I did some test Libraries of a dispersed project tonight and it works well for quickly accessing things. I won't real use it till I practice more and get it down solid.

[Petr Schreiber]

Thanks Kent for the warning, very scary story :(

Did you managed to recover your work from backups?


Petr

[Charles Pegge]

My sympathies Kent. A few ways to reduce the risk:

I always work on the assumption that my computer is about to expire or maliciously corrupt the files, with a lesser probability that it will take the backup sticks down too. So it's a matter of managing risk and periodically posting essentials to remote places on the web.

Also I very rarely consign any files to the Recycle Bin. Instead, I have a folder called Heap which takes just about everything, including older versions of files, which get overwritten. The Heap is enormous and jumbled, but I don't need to go in there very often.

Charles

[zak]

my second hard disk 500GB partitions deleted during reinstalling of windows 7 before days. it was partitioned as dynamic partitions http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa363785(v=vs.85).aspx , i restored it 100% using "EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Professional" which i have installed in the first disk partition 0 in windows xp, then checking the lost second disk for 4 hours, after that it present a very long list of folders/files to recover to an external hard disk, it keeps running all the night to successfully recovering all folders and files. and now i have repartitioned the second disk as basic ntfs and not dynamic because basic partitions are easier to recover.
what i have done wrong when installing windows 7 is to not hiding the second disk and the windows xp partition using utility such as partition wizard http://www.partitionwizard.com/ which enable you to hide/unhide and to make Active/deActive partitions.
any way windows 7 are more hostile than xp, believe or not it increases the pain in my heart, and increase the acid in the stomach. i feel more comfortable with xp, why they don't keep things as it is, just update the internal engine of the windows xp to be able to deal with recent cpu such as i3, i5, i7. and keep everything else as it is !!!. why they keep changing the position of chairs, cupboards, tables, like a wife !!.

[danbaron]

I tried to turn my computer off as usual today, and, as usual, it made me wait.

Microsoft (Windows 7) first had to install 11 updates.

It is possible to make encryptions which are impossible to break, but, it is impossible to make an operating system which is impossible to infect, correct?

Also, with respect to Microsoft, no operating system will ever be, "good enough" - as long as the people can be convinced that they cannot live without the newest gimmick. Because, in every case, the overriding motive must and should be, money.

In fact, the highest possible aspiration of humanity, is the acquisition of money.

Whoever has the most money is the best, and, vice versa.

[Michael Clease]

Here is a good example of just how over complicated windows is compared to linux which would explain why they fix one hole and create a dozen more security problems.

Article http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/2291

Linux

7699

Windows

7700

[danbaron]

"Two pictures are worth a million words."

And, how many Microsoft programmers have written books that lecture everyone else about how to program?

[kryton9]

I did lose all the code I had written. After reading about the Win Libraries and seeing that it is a neat feature, but one you need to be careful with I was still frustrated so played PC Games till I got very sleepy. I went to bed and was thinking about the loss, when an idea hit me, but I decided to wait to the next day to try it out.

The idea was that I played with Code Blocks feature to save my project as a custom template and had made a couple of them. It was not the latest code, but it was quite a bit of it. Making a new project via the user template brought back the code I had saved as a template. Since then I have been saving template with each major step forward.

I also got a usb memory stick that I have in my usb hub that I copy my codeblock's folder to now. I setup codeblocks to be transportable via these instructions:
http://www.codeblocks.org/docs/main_codeblocks_en3.html
scroll to section: 1.10.4 Configuration Files

Batch file I use to backup: I just pass the drive letters "from"(source) and "to"( my usb stick shows up as). I use this as it is flexible instead of hard coding it.

For example: bup c e bup is the name of the bat/cmd file, the first parameter is my drive c and the second e is my usb drive
It will copy all new files over.



@echo off
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo file names will displayed
echo as they are backed up
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo this can take some time,
echo please wait for the finished message.
echo.
echo.
echo starting bup now...
echo.
echo.
xcopy /s /c /d /e /h /i /r /y "%1:\CodeBlocks" "%2:\CodeBlocks"
echo.
echo.
echo.
echo bup is finished
echo.
echo.
@pause