Woopz Productionz.

I have just recovered from the shock of finally being able to find my ‘lost’ file from Windows Mail.

See, what happened was I spent the whole day working on a file which I opened in Windows Mail but not through the SAVE AS option.

When I was working on the file, I just kept clicking the Save button without realising it was being saved in some secret location that the people in Microsoft ‘devised’ simply to make their clients lives extremly difficult… (haha i’m just being super angsty here)

anyway, i browsed through these site which gave me an inkling of where i could find my file:

http://www.pcmesh.com/windows-vista-index.dat-1.htm
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1505405&SiteID=17
http://vistahelp.wordpress.com/
http://phaktor7.wordpress.com/2008/04/11/recover-outlook-attachments-saved-to-the-olk-folder/

Which really helped me realise that THE FILE IS SOMEWHERE HIDDEN I JUST COULDN’T FIND IT!

I followed all these steps diligently except for the fact that i couldn’t find the ContentIE.5 folder although i was IN the Temporary Internet Files folder!?!?

Ok I’m rambling here but in short these are my steps of HOW TO RETRIEVE A LOST FILE FROM WINDOWS MAILS:

1) Go to Control Panel > Folder Options > Click the VIEW tab > Click the SHOW HIDDEN FILES button > Uncheck Hide Extensions for Known File Types > Uncheck Hide protected operating system files

2) Go to My Computer > C: > Users > [Your Username] > AppData > Local > Microsoft >Windows>Temporary Internet Files

or

Click just cut and paste C:/Users/[Your Username]/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary Internet Files/ into your Windows Explorer toolbar (although this didn’t work for me)

or’

Reopen your attachment (mine was in Microsoft Word 2007), click on the Microsoft logo thingie, go to Prepare, and click on Properties (gosh, how i hate the new Microsoft Office now) and you will then see something like “C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5\JX13B7TU\Diet_Planner_Business_Proposal.docx”

So just remove the back portion and paste into windows explorer (e.g. C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\Content.IE5)

For most people, they should now see a Content IE.5 folder. The file is located in there, so just sort by Date Modified and go through it.

But for me, I couldn’t see ANY folder whatsoever. Meaning No CONTENT IE.5. WTS is this? Other people could see it! Angsty.

So i spent TWO HOURS FIGURING WAT WAS WRONG WITH MY COMPUTER!?!?! !@#$#%

when i was nearly in tears… i suddenly thought about pasting it into my Internet Browsers!!!

IE *cut and paste*  --> Windows cannot find blablabla DAMN YOU!

Mozilla Firefox *cuts and paste* –> The directory name came up! I was estatic! But weirdly enough, there was no listing of the files/folders in this Content IE.5 directory! WHAT’S UP WITH IT, man?!!?

One last try…

Google Chrome *cuts and paste* –> IT CAME UP! Never was i so happy to see weird alphanumeric characters like SEW26GPM or JX13B7TU or ODKFU80I!! Did some clicking around (using the CTRL F function searching for docx) and found my file in no time.

Seriously. If this blog entry could even help one other person, all my wasted years spent dabbling with computers would be WORTH IT!

Let me know if this helps anyone. *Peace* LOVES GOOGLE TO DEATH!