Comments on: Tip of the day: Back up your entire user profile

By: OXYXO

OXYXO — Mon, 12 Sep 2005 06:19:00 +0000

You need the system security keys and/or passwords to unlock the folder. You see when you reinstalled, instead of using the repair option on your windows xp cd, you inadvertantly deleted those and the installer created new ones. Next time use the repair option on the cd to fix your install. To do this, you have to choose setup windows xp option the first time and then when you see a similar menu the second time you pick the repair option…. you also might see if there is hacking program out there(be careful with this suggestion as it may open you up to viruses/hackers) to get the xp software system keys from the old install or by run codes at it till it works with your new install by finding the proper registry keys but it’s not going to be easy to get them any way you try.
I ran into the same problem a coupla years ago before i knew about the repair option and lost alot of stuff on my putr so hope this helps for that ever looming next time (hope not) but it does happen from time to time …by the way i still have files i still want to restore but havent found a program that will do it either…

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Ed, this is another great practical tip. But when Microsoft Backup backs up the user profile folder and subfolders, do image or music files suffer any degradation because of recompression? Can you tell Microsoft Backup simply to copy the files to your backup media (in my case an external UBS hard drive) without first compressing them?

And thanks again for posting the free Beethoven links.

By: Ed Bott

Ed Bott — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

You’re welcome, Ken!

Microsoft Backup doesn’t compress anything. That’s good news. Even if you were to use a backup program that does compression, it wouldn’t affect the integrity of the original files, because Zip and other similar compression algorithms such as those used in backup programs are, by definition, lossless. When you decompress, the information is identical to what it was originally. JPEG and WMA/MP3, on the other hand, are “lossy,” so editing and saving in these formats causes loss of information.

By: Frank Schrader

Frank Schrader — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

This is a good tip, but you should point out that in order for the user profile to be the default setting in Windows Backup, you need to start Backup in the wizard mode. If you start in the advanced mode you’ll need to select what to backup yourself.

By: Ryan Walters

Ryan Walters — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

I’ve always wondered why there is both an Application Data folder and a Local Settings\Application Data folder.

By: Ed Bott

Ed Bott — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Good point, Frank.

If you follow the links, you get to an original article I wrote for Microsoft’s Expert Zone that makes that point with screen shots and everything. I’ve added that link to this post.

By: Ed Bott

Ed Bott — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Ryan, I was all set to write about the distinction between the two folders, but this tip was already long enough!

Basically, the Local Settings folder is for data that is not intended to be part of a roaming profile. For most home users, that distinction is meaningless, but for corporate users it’s very important – you (and your network administrator) don’t want a 1.2GB PST file being copied every time you log on from a computer using a roaming profile, especially when you’re doing so over a dial-up connection. You also don’t want your browser’s 100+ MB of cache files to be copied as part of the logon process.

There’s a good explanation here that includes this summary:

Some folders in a user profile cannot be configured to roam; these are found in the Local Settings folder, and include the subfolders Application Data (not to be confused with the “other” Application Data folder that is a peer of Local settings, which does roam), History, Temp, and Temporary Internet Files. These folders contain application data that is not required to roam with the user, such as temporary files, non-critical settings, and data too large to roam effectively. This data is not copied to and from the server when a user logs on or logs off.

Hope that helps.

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Ed, thanks for mentioning your Expert Zone article on Microsoft Backup. I confess that I never use it, but I might start. Usually I back up important files in My Documents by simply copying them to my UBS external hard drive. It can be a pain doing it manually, but I was under the impression that Backup compressed image and music files. Now I know better.

By: Sander

Sander — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Obviously I missed last ‘weeks’ post and probably the ‘weeks’ before but I have a problem and it’s really frustrating me.

I’m unable to restore a user profile. See one of those lovely ‘winxp fix’ patches decided to take out my whole PC thanks to Microsoft and their WinXP destroy updates.

Fortunately I was able to reinstall XP and start from scratch but the trouble came after the reinstall. The old profile is still there but I am unable to restore it. I at first thought it may have been deleted (First time Xp installer) and the message said deleting winxp but I never thought it would delete the profile.

So I grabbed an undelete program but it tells me the files are still there and I am unable to get to them. Could someone please explain to me what I have do to get those files out of that folder? Simple explanations please I’m not computer retarded well maybe but the help would be greatly appreciated!

By: davak

davak — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

XP’s Hidden Backup to Save Your Profile