It all began innocently enough. I was playing music on Windows Media Player when I noticed a piece named "Like Humans Do" listed under "My Playlists". It was nothing I had ever heard before.
I have ripped a number of CDs to disk and then put selected tracks or entire albums into My Playlists. Each set holds multiple songs and is named generically. This playlist, however, was named for the single song it contained.
Media Player is set to use only one folder on my E: drive but this song was in the path below:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Music |
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A quick check of the path via Windows Explorer (at right) revealed that there is no "Documents" folder for All Users.
Based on my folder settings (below) I should see all files, including those that are best left untouched. That simply was not the case here.
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In Media Player I clicked on the option to be taken to the folder where the file resides and there it was! So I went back to the Explorer screen and manually entered the full path; the folder and the file magically appeared.
Even with all files and folders set to display, you don't get to see everything on disk.
So, what was this file? It appears to be a sample song placed on the system by Microsoft. There are more sample pieces buried in the other folders.
Microsoft stores a number of files in hidden locations. For example, a number of browser files can be found in multiple folders, all of which appear to be virtual. The same information may appear in several virtual folders, which are really "pointers" to data.
Often, the path and/or file name are related to the name of the logged-in user. Some may be in the path of the default user. What used to be a simple file path in Windows 98 can become very complex in Windows 2000 or XP. |
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Important Note
Be aware of where you are saving files! The default locations are not always intuitive, they may be related to the name of the logged-in user, and the files may not be easy to find later.
Specify file locations when saving. When downloading files, or when saving e-mail attachments, choose "Save As" or "Save Target As" and specify a location. It will be easier to find the file in a path you chose then in one that a program chose for you.
Files are not always stored where you expect them. Office files, i.e., Word and Excel, are often stored in a default folder, which can be found by going to Preferences or Options. The program's default path may not always easy to find.
Mail attachments may be hard to find. Attachments in Outlook (not Outlook Express) will be buried many layers deep under the Documents and Settings folder for the logged-in user. All you will see on your screen is a path similar to ..\OLK57a\<filename>. The ellipsis (..) means that text is missing; this could be several layers of folder names.
So, you can innocently save a file or an attachment in the default location and then go crazy trying to find it the next day. This is a very common problem, even among supposedly computer-literate people, so please do not feel that you are stupid or useless if a file path problem comes from under your chair and bites you right where you are sitting. You have a lot of company.
Note: If you think you can search for these files using the Windows search feature, that is not entirely true. Please see our page on Windows XP and look for "Fix the Search Engine!".
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| Please use these, and any other
hints you find at our Website, with caution and common sense. We make no
claims for accuracy, completeness, or much of anything else. In other words,
you are free to use these hints at your own risk. |
