Have Rebuilt OS and Need to Restore Files Artie 12/18/2008 2:44:00 AM My friend's computer wasn't working due to malware and I've rebuilt the OS from an Image I made about a year ago. Before rebuilding it from the Image, I performed I used the Windows Backup Utility and copied the c:\Documents and Settings folder to a different HD. After I restored the image, I updated several times with MSupdate, and tweaked on the system. I'm ready to run the Windows Backup Utility to restore the files. My question is do I restore all of c:\Documents and Settings, or just parts of it, such as only the userids, or even only parts of their folders/directories. I'm not sure if a wholesale transfer of the whole Documents and Setting directory will cause problems, or reset any tweaking I've done.

Re: Have Rebuilt OS and Need to Restore Files "Shenan Stanley" <newshelper[ at ]gmail.com> 12/18/2008 3:15:40 AM Artie wrote: [Quoted Text] > My friend's computer wasn't working due to malware and I've rebuilt > the OS from an Image I made about a year ago. Before rebuilding it > from the Image, I performed I used the Windows Backup Utility and > copied the c:\Documents and Settings folder to a different HD. > > After I restored the image, I updated several times with MSupdate, > and tweaked on the system. > > I'm ready to run the Windows Backup Utility to restore the files. > My question is do I restore all of c:\Documents and Settings, or > just parts of it, such as only the userids, or even only parts of > their folders/directories. > > I'm not sure if a wholesale transfer of the whole Documents and > Setting directory will cause problems, or reset any tweaking I've > done. Suggestion: Only restore the files you want - like Favorites, My Documents, etc. -- Shenan Stanley MS-MVP -- How To Ask Questions The Smart Way http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Re: Have Rebuilt OS and Need to Restore Files Artie 12/18/2008 3:45:01 AM I don't really know what they use, and they certainly don't know where everything is - thus they didn't do the backups at all. I'm not even sure I even understand everything that is in the /Documents and Settings file structure I now realize. Looking at my own computer I see that my ID has a windows folder, but another infrequently ID does not. So do I have to go looking at all the ids on the other computer? Do I restore only desktop, favorites, shared docs, and start menu per user id that I create? (Meaning, I don't restore NTUser.dat, and all the hidden folders of each ID.) Do I ignore or restore the All Users structure? "Shenan Stanley" wrote: [Quoted Text] > Artie wrote: > > My friend's computer wasn't working due to malware and I've rebuilt > > the OS from an Image I made about a year ago. Before rebuilding it > > from the Image, I performed I used the Windows Backup Utility and > > copied the c:\Documents and Settings folder to a different HD. > > > > After I restored the image, I updated several times with MSupdate, > > and tweaked on the system. > > > > I'm ready to run the Windows Backup Utility to restore the files. > > My question is do I restore all of c:\Documents and Settings, or > > just parts of it, such as only the userids, or even only parts of > > their folders/directories. > > > > I'm not sure if a wholesale transfer of the whole Documents and > > Setting directory will cause problems, or reset any tweaking I've > > done. > > Suggestion: > > Only restore the files you want - like Favorites, My Documents, etc. > > -- > Shenan Stanley > MS-MVP > -- > How To Ask Questions The Smart Way > http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html > > >

Re: Have Rebuilt OS and Need to Restore Files "Shenan Stanley" <newshelper[ at ]gmail.com> 12/18/2008 4:14:34 AM Artie wrote: [Quoted Text] > I don't really know what they use, and they certainly don't know > where everything is - thus they didn't do the backups at all. > > I'm not even sure I even understand everything that is in the > /Documents and Settings file structure I now realize. > > Looking at my own computer I see that my ID has a windows folder, > but another infrequently ID does not. So do I have to go looking > at all the ids on the other computer? > > Do I restore only desktop, favorites, shared docs, and start menu > per user id that I create? (Meaning, I don't restore NTUser.dat, > and all the hidden folders of each ID.) > > Do I ignore or restore the All Users structure? /documents and settings/<username> --> /my documents/ --> /favorites/ --> /desktop/ That covers most of the default stuff. I would restore it to a different place than directly into their current/new profile and then move it into the profile yourself (manually copy/move) after you confirm the restore was successful. It would be unusual, at best, for anything to be stored in the "All Users" folder. If they did have more than one user before - you will have to look in multiple "Documents and Settings" sub-folders. You may also be restoring old emails/contacts from some email client? -- Shenan Stanley MS-MVP -- How To Ask Questions The Smart Way http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Re: Have Rebuilt OS and Need to Restore Files Artie 12/18/2008 6:45:02 AM Email is via the web, so nothing to handle there. I did the restores and then realized that Favorites didn't include IE favorites as I'm not finding any of those in the restored accounts. I didn't export them thinking that they would be in favorites. "Shenan Stanley" wrote: [Quoted Text] > Artie wrote: > > I don't really know what they use, and they certainly don't know > > where everything is - thus they didn't do the backups at all. > > > > I'm not even sure I even understand everything that is in the > > /Documents and Settings file structure I now realize. > > > > Looking at my own computer I see that my ID has a windows folder, > > but another infrequently ID does not. So do I have to go looking > > at all the ids on the other computer? > > > > Do I restore only desktop, favorites, shared docs, and start menu > > per user id that I create? (Meaning, I don't restore NTUser.dat, > > and all the hidden folders of each ID.) > > > > Do I ignore or restore the All Users structure? > > /documents and settings/<username> > --> /my documents/ > --> /favorites/ > --> /desktop/ > > That covers most of the default stuff. I would restore it to a different > place than directly into their current/new profile and then move it into the > profile yourself (manually copy/move) after you confirm the restore was > successful. > > It would be unusual, at best, for anything to be stored in the "All Users" > folder. > > If they did have more than one user before - you will have to look in > multiple "Documents and Settings" sub-folders. > > You may also be restoring old emails/contacts from some email client? > > -- > Shenan Stanley > MS-MVP > -- > How To Ask Questions The Smart Way > http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html > > >

Re: Have Rebuilt OS and Need to Restore Files "Shenan Stanley" <newshelper[ at ]gmail.com> 12/18/2008 3:00:56 PM Artie wrote: [Quoted Text] > Email is via the web, so nothing to handle there. > > I did the restores and then realized that Favorites didn't include > IE favorites as I'm not finding any of those in the restored > accounts. I didn't export them thinking that they would be in > favorites. Unless moved, \Documents and Settings\<username>\Favorites\ *is* where Internet Explorer favorites are stored per individual user on a Windows XP machine by default. -- Shenan Stanley MS-MVP -- How To Ask Questions The Smart Way http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Re: Have Rebuilt OS and Need to Restore Files Anshul <ksdfasdf[ at ]gmail.com> 12/28/2008 11:24:16 AM On Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:14:00 +0530, Artie <Artie[ at ]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: [Quoted Text] > I'm not sure if a wholesale transfer of the whole Documents and Setting > directory will cause problems, or reset any tweaking I've done. A wholesale transfer won't cause any problems, but will leave a lot of 'broken' shortcuts around. You can do a registry scan to get rid of those. Source: Done something similar myself many times. On my system documents and settings is on a different partition. So my image of C: drive contains only the 'Windows' folder . This old Windows folder when retored after an image restoration works smoothly with my the unchanged documents abd settings folder. -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/