Windows desktop "location"/folder...

[Turbanator]

Not really a troubleshooting question, but more of an opinion poll i guess...

I've just been told that the desktop folder in windows is more prone to suffer failure than other locations such as "My documents", and thus it is risky to store important files on your desktop / in sub-folders of your desktop. Anyone ever heard of this before?

I've seen registry corruption which causes your profile to lose track of the desktop location and you get assigned a temporary desktop, but never just losing all the files there which is what this guy's suggesting?

[BibleThumper XP]

i have porn galore covering my entire desktop and i have no problems with my computer

whats up turb

[plan13]

There are 2 kinds of files appearing on your desktop.
Yours and all users'.
Some major apps often register shortcuts for all users.

[AL|EN]

Set you Desktop to D:\Desktop by TweakUI and you can solve all you problems :-]

[Eraser]

Seems a bit of an odd statement to me. I don't see why files are more prone to corruption or loss when they're on the desktop or the desktop itself for that matter. It's just an ordinary folder on your harddisk. I've never heard of anyone having problems with it.

[Fender]

I don't think it is ordinary, though. IIRC, there's things stored in your user meta-data/registry about the desktop folder. It is a problem w/ profiles/registry more than a problem w/ a folder.

[R00k]

It's just a folder on your drive, but there is metadata associated with it that makes it a bit different. But in the later versions of Windows, most other folders have that kind of metadata as well.

When you log in and get a blank desktop, that has nothing to do with the desktop necessarily, it's a corrupted profile that Windows can't load, which usually means the user registry hive (ntuser.dat).

Even if this happens, the desktop folder is still there though. It's just creating a fresh, blank profile and logging you in with that - not deleting your old one.

But having a bunch of shit on your desktop does slow things down a bit, since every time you show your desktop it has to draw all those icons.

[MKJ]

and if youre on a roaming profile, it has to download all that shit over and over again.

it also tends to restore older files back on your desktop due to not being completely in sync.
for home use, it really doesnt matter that much.

[Don Carlos]

Sounds like rubbish to me...

[shaft]

keep it real didn't know.

[Turbanator]

It's just a folder on your drive, but there is metadata associated with it that makes it a bit different. But in the later versions of Windows, most other folders have that kind of metadata as well.

When you log in and get a blank desktop, that has nothing to do with the desktop necessarily, it's a corrupted profile that Windows can't load, which usually means the user registry hive (ntuser.dat).

Even if this happens, the desktop folder is still there though. It's just creating a fresh, blank profile and logging you in with that - not deleting your old one.

But having a bunch of shit on your desktop does slow things down a bit, since every time you show your desktop it has to draw all those icons.

exactly what i thought... it was just one of those situations where you pause for a second and think "have I been missing something this entire time?" and just wanted to double check (I may still be missing something, but least I know I'm not alone now )

[Plan B]

Sounds like bullshit.
Why should any file be more vulnerable because of its location on your hd/folder structure.

[Foo]

There's not much special about the desktop. However in some corporations, only the 'My Documents' folder is backed up, and files saved to the desktop would be lost if the workstation fell over.

So if you got that information from someone who's working corporate IT - it could be that their department has that in place and hence he's passing that advice on verbatim without understanding that it's specific to his company.

On the other hand, if you've been told that by an IT guy at your work... then maybe your company is running the same system.

Most places though have either roaming profiles which capture all user storage locations (including the desktop and my documents), or mandatory profiles which means you can only save documents to your one personal space.

[Peenyuh]

I've noticed that some people store files on their desktop rather than shortcuts. I don't really understand this. I only store shortcuts there and keep a copy of the shortcut in a shortcuts folder in my docs. What kind of stuff would anyone be afraid of losing? Shortcuts?

[R00k]

Roaming profiles are shit, generally. There are good uses for them of course, it's just a matter of personal opinion. Nothing slows down a PC on the network like having pst/ost files open on a server, along with the synchronization during login.

If you're thinking about doing that, why not just bite the bullet and use Citrix, or some other type of thin client? That would be demonstrably faster. It just seems like a half measure to me.

[Foo]

Roaming profiles are shit, generally. There are good uses for them of course, it's just a matter of personal opinion. Nothing slows down a PC on the network like having pst/ost files open on a server, along with the synchronization during login.

If you're thinking about doing that, why not just bite the bullet and use Citrix, or some other type of thin client? That would be demonstrably faster. It just seems like a half measure to me.

You can dodge some issues and complexity by:
A: Agreeing with the business that files not stored in the correct places aren't protected in any way from any kind of failure, accident, or oversight.
B: Exclude .ost and .pst file types from offline files sync using group policy.
C: Implement a strict mail file size on the server (excepting VIPs), and issue docs encouraging deletion of old material rather than archiving.

You can also prevent archiving to some extent with GP. Managed folders also make things a bit easier in Ex2007.

Roaming profiles do have their place, depends on the WAN/Office layout and IT's skill distribution back to front-end.... but given the choice I'd go for thick client, mandatory profiles, and shared user/office/group drives. Way less overhead for 'standard' business IT requirements.

[R00k]

With the roaming profile policies you mentioned, you'd be setting yourself up for a lot of headache due to overestimating the intelligence of the average user. You also have to have a well-performing network and fairly beefy file/storage servers with well-tuned I/O systems to handle high loads.

With thin clients those things aren't a concern - you can run a ton of Citrix clients over any typical small office network without worrying much about performance, and even pretty minimal server-side tuning. If you have Citrix servers AND roaming profiles, with the file servers connected to the Citrix farm via their own private network, then you can get serious performance, plenty of storage, and fairly low maintenance requirements - not to mention that users are automatically ready to work over a VPN connection if necessary. Log-shipping or replicating the Citrix farm data store means almost no downtime, ever. The worst part about Citrix is printer management, but buying only printers that have known good drivers for Citrix takes care of that handily.

Not sure what you mean by 'mandatory profiles' but shared server storage and thick clients are pretty standard and easy to set up for just about any IT staff. I prefer it personally, but again that's just personal preference - and I'm not a user.

[Grudge]

in Sweden .ost means .cheese

[Whiskey 7]

Sounds like rubbish to me...

Agreed. I have never had a problem @ home but @ work these mongrels called roaming profiles chase (try) me from desk to desk and are a real pain