Hi, JM24.
You DID change the Folder Options defaults, didn't you? For the protection
of Newbies, Vista (and WinXP) comes set to hide system files and to hide
extensions for known file types (such as .exe files). That's one of the
first things I always change when installing Windows! It may be good for
Newbies, but it is frustrating, especially for experienced users - and
DANGEROUS, in my opinion!
To be sure, go Control Panel | Folder Options | View. In addition to any
other changes you may like, be sure to check Show hidden files and folders,
and uncheck both Hide extensions for known file types and Hide protected
operating system files (Recommended). That may be recommended by Microsoft,
but not by me and most MVPs that I know.
My guess is that Vista DID copy all those setup.exe and other executable
files, but you could not see them because of those default settings. So you
went through a lot of needless trauma because of that.
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64)
"JM24" <JM24.32yc4w@xxxxxx-mx.forums.vistaheads.com> wrote in message
news:JM24.32yc4w@xxxxxx-mx.forums.vistaheads.com...
Quote:
>
> I know my way around computers pretty well. I have
> programmed in assembler, Fortran, later Cobol, and other languages. To
> this day, I still work in the technology industry. When it comes to
> computers, and technology in general, people seek me out for input and I
> generally always have the answer.
>
> I say this to make you aware that I am not a typical clueless home user
> poking away at the keyboard and hoping for the best. I say this also
> because what I am about to tell you will probably make as little sense
> to you as it does to me. Nonetheless, I hope that one of you may have
> the answer.
>
> About a year ago I purchased a HP Pavilion notebook, model dv2171cl. It
> came with XP Pro with a promised upgrade to Vista Home Premium, when
> available. When the upgrade became available I ordered it and waited
> until about last July to install it.
>
> Like many of you, I had acquired quite a bit of software over the
> years. This was software that I needed to rebuild my computer should I
> find myself re-installing Windows from scratch. Some of it was on CDs
> but a lot of it was downloaded updates and new versions of existing
> software. None of it was out of date, it was all XP era software. All of
> this software was stored on an external, USB attached, disk. It happens
> to be a Maxtor 500 GB drive. This was prudent, I thought, in the event
> my C:\ drive ever crashes.
>
> The day finally arrived when I decided enough time had passed that
> there would be sufficient experience with Vista out there that I would
> not be swimming alone. The install went smoothly and nothing seemed out
> of order. I did have to do a clean install since Home Premium will not
> let you do an upgrade. Since the install was clean, I had to re-install
> software I had stored on my external drive.
>
> I don't recall the exact sequence of events but at some point I
> connected the drive to my pc. At some point after that, I went to
> install software stored on my external drive. I swear I had not made any
> changes or modifications to the drive at all. I opened up Vista Explorer
> and navigated to my drive and the appropriate folders to begin
> re-installation. Guess what?
>
> The setup file was missing! I thought I was seeing things or made some
> sort of mistake, perhaps selected the wrong drive. I closed Explorer and
> tried again. Same thing. I tried another application and navigated to
> its folder. No setup files. In fact, _EACH_AND_EVERY_EXECUTABLE_FILE_
> stored on my external drive along with .dll, .ini, and .cfg files had
> vanished. Only the executables stored in zip archives were spared.
>
> I have managed to get by since I have several backups but I didn't
> manage to find my files until last night. I did a search on my external
> drive for \".exe\" and, lo and behold, they all showed up in what
> appears to be a restore point dating back to last July (when I upgraded
> to Vista). The restore point is located in one of two \"System Volume
> Information\" folders on the drive.
>
> The specific location is this:
>
> H:\System Volume
> Information\_restore{E5E4629D-F67A-49B3-B4CC-2A9B19E34103}\RP160
>
> It seems that Restore Point 160 is where Vista *-*** WITHOUT WARNING
> ***-* decided to stash all the software it didn't like and only left
> plain vanilla files (non-executables). To make matters worse, it renamed
> many of the files making it nearly impossible to know where they belong
> although, for some, the properties remain intact.
>
> My question is whether anyone else has experienced anything even
> remotely similar? I would also like to know what you did to retrieve
> your files? My concern here is that
>
> 1. my restore points won't go that far back
> 2. if they do and I perform a restore, I will have restored
> _EVERYTHING_ to that point in time
> 3. I don't know of any way to restore an individual drive, although
> that's my next research project.
>
> My guess here is that the issue may have to do with identities. Since I
> would have had one identity - and set of credentials - in XP and Vista
> would have assigned new credentials in a clean install, it may have
> decided it was going to eliminate any threat from an unknown set of
> credentials or identity. As I said before, a warning would have been
> nice. The same issue happens in XP, but XP doesn't pull this stunt. XP
> would not let you access another identity's files, even though they were
> yours, unless you went into a folder's properties and took ownership.
>
> Of course, all this happened when I first installed Vista and before I
> became fully aware of how security conscious (*PARANOID*) Vista is. I
> have since turned off all security \"enhancements\" Vista imposes on
> users.
>
> I hope the community can be of help and I do appreciate whatever input
> I can get.
>
>
> --
> JM24