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My Documents is Gone (Windows 7)

Anonymous
2016-10-21T02:49:55+00:00

Ok, so a friend of mine has a big issue.  A couple of weeks ago he couldn't find his documents (he only told me about it yesterday). In his user folder, the My Documents folder is missing.  I've done a system restore from a 3 week old image and nothing's changed.  What I did notice, is when I try to create a new folder and name it My Documents, I get a prompt to merge folders with a blank sheet icon named '<1& NULL:NameDest>'.  I've also looked in the registry and noticed that the entry for personal was directed to a network drive under the name owner.  Some more information (I don't know what the heck he did and he's computer illiterate), in the users directory, his username is not there, assuming it has been replaced with Owner, even though the link to his user directory is sitting on his desktop.  I can't find much information on this issue and don't want to mess around with registry information, unless someone can give me more information as to the cause or issue.  Thanks in advance for any help or advice you guys can give me.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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Greg Carmack 24,770 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2016-10-21T02:59:43+00:00

It sounds like either the User account or the User Documents folder was moved, possibly manually by dragging it (even accidentally) to the desktop.  This is hard to put back to default but I'll give you the best tutorials on the web for it, and also alternative options:

Follow the steps here to restore the User account's Documents (and any other missing User folders) to the default location:  User Folders - Restore Default Location

But if the User account itself is no longer in place then you  may need to restore it following the steps contained in this tutorial to reverse it: User Profile - Change Default Location

This is a complicated operation that may best be abandoned to eitherCreate a NewUser Account for the install or do a Clean Reinstall Windows 7

If the Documents folder was moved to a Network drive, then it's possible (though unusual) that the files may have been moved to that location on the network.  But this would almost have to be done deliberately since moving the User folders requires agreeing (or not) to move all the files in them to the new location. 

The best way to try to find the files if they're still on the PC  is to type keywords from Documents into the Start Search box to see if they're found.  Be sure to also check under the User account to see if it's still there but no longer an official Shell User folder (signified by the document insignia in the corner). 

Feel free to ask back any questions and let us know how it goes.

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  1. Greg Carmack 24,770 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2016-10-21T03:10:34+00:00

    Please re-read my last post online after refreshing as I added more resources.

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