The Computer Tutor

How to find your important files

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Today I’ll show you the absolute quickest way to get to all of your important files on your Windows computer.

 

You might already know that you can click on the little “file folder” icon at the bottom of the screen to open Windows File Explorer. It looks like this:

 

That opens a window (File Explorer) that shows some of your personal folders such as Documents, Pictures, etc. But it doesn’t show ALL of your personal files and folders. So how do you see all of them?

It’s easy to do this:

  1. Hold down the Windows key (lower left area of the keyboard) and tap the letter “r”
  2. In the search box, type “.” (just a period, without the quotes)
  3. Hit Enter

    4. What you see next is your user profile folder. This displays ALL of the files and folders in your Windows user profile.

    A couple of things to note:

    • That window will only show the contents for the user profile you are signed into at the moment. If there is more than one user profile in this computer, you would need to go to the other user profile(s) to see the contents of that profile.
    • Some programs store data in weird places. One example is Quickbooks. More than once, I have seen the Quickbooks company files stored in the user profile called “Public” – completely outside the user profile being used. This is not only confusing, it could also be dangerous – since that folder might not be included in a backup process. You really should check and see where Quickbooks is storing your data.

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      The Computer TutorBy Scott Johnson
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